Chapter Text
Routines often change. It’s the only thing common in her life.
Natalie is not quite sure when it changed for her. At one point in her life, she was so accustomed to working with her father that losing him almost made her feel incomplete as an engineer everytime she worked, with distractions always reminding her of what could have been. However, the peace and quiet of working alone has immediately become her new norm, with nothing but her organized mess as company and herself to discuss ideas with.
For a while, she was okay with working alone. Working with others always makes for stressful days, where she has to balance focus on her work and keeping up interesting dialogues with whoever she is working with at the workshop. In the Apex HQ's common workshop, she often has to deal with having to explain her work, or having to juggle light talk with making sure she's doing everything right. And while she is fond of her fellow legends, they're too loud. Too distracting.
Despite rules she's often holed up in her room to work nowadays, only coming out when the other legends have requests for maintenance or anything they want looked at. Her and the other tech-savvy legend Crypto are often the pair holed up in the workshop, and Natalie is glad he doesn't like talking either, because she can finish up work and leave to do her own thing.
That's always how it's been ever since she became a legend for the Apex Games. Sit around the common workshop for a bit for maintenance reasons, then flee the scene to her room where the real experimenting can start. Then she works all night and wakes up to pretend she's gotten enough sleep for any match or things she may have to do, then do it all again.
But then, sometimes her routine just changes for good. And for once, Natalie is happy about it.
It happened in a span of weeks. Natalie could blame it on herself for taking so long and being awkward about it, but she believes it's both on her and Wraith, her fellow legend whose real name she didn’t even know before. They have always thought of each other as friends (somehow), but the skirmisher was never the type to focus on technology, and so she only sees her at downtimes after games or day work. Wraith seems to like hanging out with her to discuss work or the Games, or to have heated discussions over asinine things.
Still, they talk a lot, and it's enough for Natalie to think they're more than just colleagues or work friends. Slightly more than work friends, for sure.
However, she’s noticed that she hasn’t seen her for the past week. She wasn’t in the Games at all last week, and she didn’t show up at any of the communal dinners, too. Natalie isn’t sure what it meant, and she wanted to ask the other legends when she’s free. She thought maybe the HQ would have said something, but nothing.
It was a little odd to work with it at the back of her mind.
Then the workshop’s door beeps, and Wraith walks in. She has a box of stuff in hand, wires spilling out of the edges like a display of fireworks. She unceremoniously dumped the box’s contents on a random workshop table, grabbed a small welding box and immediately busied herself to work for the next hour or so.
Wattson kept looking on, because Wraith was so distractingly bad. It was so hauntingly distracting on how exposed she was to getting electrocuted. She wasn’t wearing goggles, so the engineer could just see her pale blue eyes that’s definitely not going to see anytime soon once welding sparks land on them. She wasn’t wearing proper gear, she wasn’t even wearing gloves, and why is she wearing shorts in the workshop? Does she want to burn her perfectly fine legs? Her hair is in a slick bun on top of her hair but it’s dangling everywhere, and it will catch on fire if she doesn’t pin all of it back.
The skirmisher is handling electronics. At least, the engineer assumes she’s handling electronics.
After finally deciding to pick up a set of safety gear for her, Wraith jumps from her seat, smoke coming out of her cubicle. What followed is a string of expletives, and a small wisp of smoke from whatever she was working on.
The engineer quickly ran to where she was, and managed to immediately unplug everything before grabbing the fire blanket somewhere in the emergency kit and throwing it on the table, smothering the fire entirely.
The skirmisher has fled to the corner of the workshop, where she's grabbed an HQ-issued first-aid kit to tend to the burns on her hands. Natalie gently grabs the skirmisher’s callused hands to assess the damage -- judging from the red splotches on her skin and fingers, she most likely accidentally touched a live wire, and somehow welded her hand.
Natalie pops in a syringe -- the same stuff they use in the arena, just to accelerate healing -- and proceeds to grab a cold pack somewhere in the kit to press on the burns. Ajay was out doing her own errands, so this is all they can do until she returns.
“Sorry.” Wraith is avoiding eye contact, probably realizing the silliness of it all. “This is probably really dumb.”
“We all start somewhere, mon dieu . Just make sure to wear insulation gloves next time.” A sheepish smile, before the engineer points at the rack of protection gear on the far wall. “Don’t want the best skirmisher of the Apex Games to perish in an electrical fire.”
“I read that I needed these, but I didn’t know where to look for them.” The skirmisher looks down, watching the engineer tend to her burns. “I thought… well, I thought I’ll be lucky and won’t get into any trouble.”
“Didn’t know you’re the kind to gamble risks like that, especially over what I assume is a quick maintenance check.”
That earned her a laugh from Wraith. “In my defense, other people in this building have bigger risks than getting zapped.”
All Natalie could do was hum in assent as she takes off the cold pack and digs around the kit for some form of burn cream and slathering a healthy amount of the cream on the burns. It’s true, she thinks. The other legends are doing other, more complicated and dangerous maintenance work, but it’s not like they care about their own safety. If they do, they know the risks, and they know how to avoid them. Natalie doesn’t even know how much Wraith knows about engineering.
“What were you fixing anyway?” he engineer grabbed some bandages and snipped off half of it before quickly wrapping it around Wraith’s hand.
“Nothing.” After a long, really awkward pause, Wraith follows it up. “Well, it’s my bracer. It was glitching out on me.”
Glitching out? “Like how?”
A long, drawn out pause, as the skirmisher watches her finish up her bandages. As soon as it’s secure and on place, she speaks up.“The display,” Wraith says, walking to where she was working and pointing at the small screen on the main panel of the bracer. It’s small and turned off, but Natalie has a guess that it’s not working as intended, especially now that the edges of it are burned to a crisp. “It’s… shorting?”
It looked as easy as a fix on the wires, but Natalie may have to check. “What does this measure exactly?”
“Void stuff. It measures energy levels, distances, that kind of thing.”
“Mm, I see.” The engineer seats herself by the worktable, and pulls up a chair close to her so Wraith can watch if she wants, as she went to go get her toolbox. Upon returning to the table, she realizes she hasn’t asked permission if she could even touch it, but Wraith was seated as if she’s more than willing to backseat for now.
“Can I… can I fiddle with it a bit?” It doesn’t hurt to ask.
Once again, Wraith pauses. But she nods after a while. Natalie makes quick work of dismantling the bracer and cleaning some dust and soot off along the way, all with Wraith’s watchful eyes. After taking off some layers, the problem became rather apparent. “I think the power supply is not routing properly. I can fix it and adjust it so it won’t be a problem in the near future. Does that sound good?”
“Yes!” Wraith looks really excited, Natalie notes. The skirmisher’s smile is probably warmer than intended. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Okay!” Natalie reassembles the bracer and gently puts it back in the box before putting away her tools. “Come back in the weekend, I can get this done--”
“No!”
“Oh, are you in a rush? I can try--”
“No, not really.”
“Then what is it?”
“I was hoping… I could watch you fix it. For future reference.” Wraith has stood up at this point, posture tense. Or nervous? It’s hard to guess. “I’m not in a rush, take as much time as you need, but… I want to learn how to fix my things.”
That’s a reasonable request. Back in Natalie’s engineering days, some clients really did request to oversee the maintenance or repair work. Most actually do have genuine concern over their machinery or have a genuine intent to learn, just because. In those situations however, the engineer mostly refuses, because it’s hard to coordinate schedules with the clients. With Wraith however… they’re practically living under one roof. It’s hard to say no to.
“That’s all right.” Natalie finishes packing up her toolbox before she fully faces Wraith. All she needs to do is clear some details and it sounds like a plan. “But I have work to do right now, and I need to go for a supply run tomorrow.”
“When will you be fixing it?”
“Maybe in a few days? If you want, you can come with me tomorrow, I’ll buy the stuff I need for your bracer along with the supplies for here." She remembers the incident a few days ago when Octane's legs went into the workshop in a molten pile because he thought it was a good idea to walk through the lava fissure in World's Edge without any assistance. It's fixed now, but now the workshop is out of certain metals as a result.
“I can come with you, sure. I’ll meet you in the lobby tomorrow noon, before lunch?”
“That sounds like a plan!”
Sounds like a plan.
A vague one, but it works.
And just like that, it all changes.
There's nothing wrong with going out with a work friend to do some errands. And there's no need to dress so nicely for it, either. But Natalie finds herself preparing for it like it was a date, poring over her outfits on what is suitable for both an errand run and for looking good in case the media sees them out.
In the end, she opted for some blue-grey denim coveralls over a plain shirt with the biggest, most comfortable sneakers she could find, thinking that she may need to do some heavy lifting to load all of the supplies on the mini-truck. She knew there’s people who would help, but you can’t be too prepared. She puts her standard glove over her prosthetic as well, just so all the metal doesn’t look too jarring to any bystander; and she also put on some makeup after accidentally pulling an all-nighter once more after adjusting her pylons.
It turns out, as she saw Wraith waiting in the lobby, that preparing a little may have been worth it, as the skirmisher looks… nice. The skirmisher showed up in workout gear, specifically a really nice gradient purple dri-fit shirt, and what looks like yoga pants paired with walking shoes and (intentionally?) mismatched socks.
Natalie wasn't staring at the whole view. Definitely not.
Wraith may have seen her eyeing her clothing, because she immediately looked embarrassed. "I just thought we might have to walk around a lot, so I might as well."
Natalie laughs. "You know we're bringing a mini-truck, right?"
All the skirmisher could do was smile. "You can never be too prepared, I suppose."
"You still look good, ma belle .” Natalie offers her hand, ready to lead her to the truck to begin their day. “Let's go?"
Heading to the warehouse was easy. Natalie hasn’t driven in a while, but she still got her license and the warehouse is a good thirty minutes away from the HQ. Once they got to the warehouse, the staff knew her, and didn't make the transaction between them and the Apex Games that big of a deal, so things went a little smoother. They got most of the specific parts they needed for the workshop and parts for maintenance work for the ring, and as the warehouse staff was loading the materials on the truck and they made triple-sure the count was right, the engineer started asking about specific pieces for Wraith's bracer.
Then they said they’re out of the damn tiny piece of metal and they have to go somewhere else for the very specific part.
Stumped and their schedule now a bit of a mess, Wraith suggested they eat out for a bit while they discuss what to do next. The engineer has a good guess that while her abilities are intrinsic and is a part of the skirmisher herself, the device lets her limit herself so she can fight for longer and better. While Wraith can still fight at the match next week with her gear, it would give her a disadvantage to not be able to measure whatever it is the display is measuring.
Natalie points out a random restaurant, a Southeast Asian place she’s been eyeing for a while. Wraith seems to agree and walks towards it almost immediately. The break would be a good opportunity to ask about her general maintenance in the HQ, since she’s gotten so desperate as to resort to DIY measures to fix her own things.
“I thought you can get your things fixed in the HQ,” Natalie says as they walk into the restaurant and immediately get seated. She’s not sure if they were recognized. “The workshop is mostly for maintenance, not for repairs…”
“Yeah, I tried with the admin,” Wraith says, eyeing the menus they’ve been handed, “but recently they’re answering less and less every time I have questions about, well… myself.”
They take a brief moment to pick out their food, none of which they’re even remotely familiar with, but Natalie is always willing to try something new. Wraith, on the other hand, took longer to place an order for something. They handed in their orders and got their drinks before an awkward silence settled in. Wraith almost immediately finished her drink, a nice looking mango juice, and there was a long minute of nothing but the sound of her attempting to sip her drink between ice cubes.
Natalie doesn’t really know what to do, but she likes to see the good in most things. She never really bothered with admin’s repair service, since she knew how to fix her own things most of the time. She knew how every pylon works, she knew what every single screw holds down, and if she had the time she would make new iterations of all of her projects each time. Perhaps Wraith’s situation can be a good chance to learn the ins-and-outs…?
“I guess it’s good, right?”
The sipping noises stopped. “It’s not good. How is this good?” Wraith sounded almost angry. Almost . “Who knows if they have other plans, that’s why they aren’t answering me.”
“We can find out answers ourselves, is what I’m saying. We can learn to fix your gear, and you never have to ask them for help about it ever again.” Natalie’s specialty may be electronics but she still takes pride with her mechanical skills, and reverse-engineering devices has always been one talent she’s grown to be proud of over time.
“I don’t know, I’m not the best with tech things…I know I used to know these, but…” Wraith taps her drink glass with her nails. “Things have just been… confusing.”
“Yeah, I know. Engineering’s not that easy to get into, but I can teach you what I know--”
“No, it’s not that.” Wraith’s smile can only be described as sheepish. “My memory has been a little on the bad side, especially recently. If you ask me to remember who won in the matches a few months ago, I won’t have any answer to you even if it was me.”
“Hm, yeah, I get it,” Natalie says. “It’s mostly about instinct though. Pretty sure you got a lot of that.”
“...You can say that.” Wraith looks away. She seems unsure as to how to handle the situation. “I'm not one to doubt your judgment."
Natalie is not entirely sure, but she knows that the skirmisher is figuring out a lot of things about herself, and with the discovery that she’s having memory issues, it all falls to pieces as to why she’s not too receptive to the idea of looking into details. What's the point after all, if there's a lot of factors getting in the way? She knows she got in the Apex Games for this, and there is probably a lot of factors in play, but....
"We can try it out for this one. If it doesn't work out, then you're free to back out.” “Just sit with me as we look over your tech… sounds good?"
“I suppose taking some classes from you won’t hurt." Wraith's smiling, with a hand under her chin and looking quite satisfied. "Especially someone as good as you.”
The food arrives before Natalie could even respond and she realizes how hungry she is as she tries out the unfamiliar meal. She is unfamiliar with the flavors or whatever they have used to make this taste as it is, but the sourness of the soup almost feels rather homey and savory in equal measures.
She's pretty hungry, since she did help out with carrying some of the bigger supplies to the truck, so she was able to finish half of her food before realizing that she is with someone and she’s been silent this whole time.
Glancing at Wraith, they're eating rather slowly, taking small bites once in a while. Natalie can't tell if they like the meal, but if she's still eating, that's a good sign.
The engineer also notes she's watching her rather intently.
Natalie nudges her bowl. ".... Do you want to try this?"
Wraith nods silently.
Without thinking much about it, Natalie takes her spoon and takes some of her soup before offering it to the skirmisher.
It took a solid second before Natalie realizes what she's doing, but before she can joke about it and pull her hand away, Wraith comes close and actually takes a sip.
Time almost seems to have frozen in place as Wraith processes the taste for a few seconds.
"It's sour." Wraith finally speaks. "It's good."
"Right?" Natalie finally pulls away, not knowing how to act. She just focuses on the food. "This is great! If you’d like, we can come back here next time."
" Next time?"
Suddenly, all Natalie wants to do is hide in the workshop and don’t talk to anyone ever again. She’s surprised Wraith seems okay with all of this, taking all of her weird errors with stride. She decides to just focus on finishing her meal, but instead she decides to just follow through and tell her what she thinks. “Yeah. Next time, if you want to come with me for next month’s supply run. If you’re free, of course. I’d like you to come with me, if this isn’t too boring for you, ma belle .”
“It’s not boring,” Wraith says. There’s her usual contemplative pause, then she speaks. “I just don’t know what to say right now, especially with my stuff broken. We will see if my stuff’s fixed quickly, then maybe I can come with you for the next run.”
“Amazing!” The thought of doing this again -- just going out on errands and wandering around -- is strangely appealing for the engineer, and she couldn’t help but smile and laugh. “That sounds like another plan, mon dieu! ”
“But first…” Wraith says, “The bracer.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Natalie tries to think about it, since she’s only slightly familiar with the area, but she is pretty certain there may be other options in the area, although it would involve lots of walking. “I’m not sure, but I remember a couple of hardware shops nearby. We might find something.”
Upon a quick check in Wraith's phone, there are three other hardware shops in their general area, and the pair immediately planned out a route to visit them one by one by foot. It would be a fun time, Natalie thinks. It's good exercise, at least.
They finished up their food -- Natalie notes that Wraith finished her noodles, so she seemed to really like it -- and asked for the bill. After paying and leaving behind a tip, they set out on their way.
The third, farthest hardware shop did have what they were looking for, but they only sold the specific piece in a pack of twenty, so Natalie has to look for something to use the other pieces on. Projects come easy to her anyway, so she sets that aside as a problem for the future. The hardware shop owner also seemed to recognize both of them, but the woman didn’t say anything except offer her a discount, which the engineer refused.
After wandering around and finding other things for the workshop as well as other interesting places Natalie notes they could visit later when they go out again and have more time, she realized they’re pretty much done now. They can walk back to the truck and drive home and call it a day.
Natalie doesn’t feel like coming home, however.
“So uh, what now?” Wraith is standing close, whose hand somehow found its way on the crook of Natalie’s arm as they pace around the sidewalk. The sun is setting, and the gold goes nicely with the brick and concrete of the buildings around them as the streetlights start opening one by one.
Natalie really doesn’t want to go back to the HQ yet.
“Hm…Most of the repairs and all isn’t scheduled for tomorrow, so…” It felt rather right for Natalie to just hold her hand and lead her to places. “Do you want to just hang out somewhere?”
They eventually found a cafe that didn’t look like a cafe, with places for normal cafe seats on one side and a playplace of some kind on the other, with tables and corners situated on little cave-type spaces in the walls. Wraith ordered both of them drinks and snacks and made a beeline for one of the little caves, kicking off her shoes and entering the mat area before climbing up the short ladder and sitting cross-legged by the low table.
She’d admit that she went here once or twice, but she was mostly at the study area because it was relatively more quiet here at their peak hours than the late night times at the HQ. But she has never really been in the playplace, and she’s seen families and couples hole up on the cave areas. She never really thought it would be appropriate without bringing someone with her, however…
Their order arrives, and looks at Wraith absently watching the children play around nearby as she sips her iced tea. It was a pretty crowded cafe, but Natalie finds it that she doesn’t mind the sound of children playing and idle talk between the other customers. This corner is just fine, and maybe if time would allow it, they can stay here for a little longer.
She watches Wraith crawl back to her seat, put down her drink, and help herself to a breadstick.
Then it hits her.
“This is like a date, isn’t it...”
Wraith almost spits out her food. “Are you saying it isn’t?”
“What, so you came with me knowing it’s a date?” They're friends at most; at least, that's what Natalie thinks. She never really thought a date that consists of them going out for supplies and visiting several hardware stores then eating in between would constitute as a fun time -- she always thought a date would be more exciting. “I would have told you… but surely this isn’t that exciting of a date.”
“I thought I wouldn't get invited for errands, otherwise… no one really want to hang out with me in the first place." A sheepish smile flashes on Wraith’s face, before she takes a sip of her drink and focuses her entire attention on the engineer. "Not that I mind, I did have fun today. I learned a lot already, and you weren't even trying to teach me anything."
“I’m glad you had fun, Wraith.” Natalie reaches out and holds one of the skirmisher’s hand in her own, making sure she uses her actual hand instead of her prosthetic. Her warmth radiates through her and is making her feel rather giddy. “We will hopefully have more exciting times than this, ma chérie .”
Wraith suddenly looks away. She looks doubtful. A contemplative silence settles in, so much it almost turns awkward, but Natalie still held her hand and waited.
She’s okay if Wraith is not yet sure, she’s okay with waiting. She can just help her fix things for now or just be a friend, and it would be just as good. If today was where she wanted to stop, Natalie would let her--
“It’s Renee, by the way.” Pale blue eyes meet hers, and Natalie feels her sincerity through it all. “I suppose you should know, since I’ve been calling you with your name too.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
It takes a minute for Natalie to process.
Renee…
“Th... thanks,” Natalie finally says. “Thank you, Renee.”
Renee laughs, a low and melodic hum that’s making Natalie feel giddy. “So, do you want some of my breadsticks?” Renee’s hand already has food in her hand to offer. As Natalie accepts the offered breadstick with a laugh, she thinks on how her downtime could be any better.
The next day, they met up in the workshop for the fixes. Renee even brought her food, as a payment of sorts for the fixes. Natalie wasn't expecting anything, but she appreciated the thought, and she found that she enjoyed the skirmisher’s rough approximation of the soup from the other day.
The bracer was a really quick fix, but the whole ordeal took the entire day. Renee asked a lot of questions about the technology, and while the engineer didn't make the bracer, she offered some guesses on what things could be for or what they do. The broken display was simple enough, but she knew little about the other parts of the piece.
She would like to know more, however. And if Renee would like to, she would like to watch and help discover the void with her.
Even after her bracer was fixed, it became routine now for Renee to come pass by the workshop. Natalie would be working, and Renee would watch for a bit and listen to the engineer's thoughts about a project, before the engineer drags her to the kitchen for snacks and drinks, and it eventually becomes the skirmisher's turn to share some stuff she has been reading about about files she has found or new, unrelated things she has discovered.
Other people are quite loud in the workshop.
Not Renee.
And Natalie has taken comfort with their silence. At first, the silence is awkward, and there's nothing Natalie wanted but to hear Renee speak her thoughts. And while she still enjoys it, she soon realized that Renee is not expecting her to fill the silence all the time. So she’s just fine working in her presence, working together in relative silence, knowing that the moment is for themselves and to share it is for later.
Months are quick to pass by, and the feeling Natalie captures is contentment.
The engineer is also not quite sure how to call what’s happening. She’s pretty certain that Renee is also figuring things out, and Natalie is more than happy to help her along the way. But at the same time, she’s not sure where things stand, or what to call Renee, or if it is leading anywhere. But in the many years she’s spent alone, she realizes that it doesn’t really matter if there’s anything else, just as long as she’s with her.
Natalie’s content with where things stand.
Helping Renee with herself has always been the intention.
Falling in love is just a nice bonus.
“Nat, what’s the occasion? Why are you giving me a gift?”
“Nothing! I just want to give you something.”
“What’s this...?”
“Just open it, mon amour. ”
Renee did, and she was awfully careful with taking off the wrapping, taking her time to cut the tape around the edges instead of ripping the whole thing off like how others might go about it.
The skirmisher holds the unwrapped gift in her hands. “It’s… a notebook?”
“Yep. Also some stickers I got from a fair, just in case you’re into that. And a pen!” Natalie gently takes the journal and flips through, showing Renee the dotted pages as well as the pocket at the back where she tucked some sticker sheets, as well as the metal space pen. “I just thought that since you said you’re afraid you might forget details… now you won’t!”
Renee looks at the items with amazement, and for a few seconds she just flips through the empty pages and even hugs it close to smell the pages. Finally, she comes close to Natalie for an embrace.
“Thank you so much, Nat.” Her voice is soft and warm, and he tightens the hug like her life depended on it.
“Anything for you, mon amour !”
When she pulls away, Renee has that odd, thoughtful look in her eyes -- she looks away for a split second, and later she holds the engineer’s hands.
“I actually have some news for you. I meant to tell you this before but.. It’s pretty big.”
“If it took you this long to update me, then surely it’s rather exciting!”
“I’m sure you’d find it really exciting.” Renee takes out a folded sheet of paper and begins to unfold it. “So, you remember that time I told you I think I could explore the void and take a peek at things?”
“Yes?” Natalie couldn’t hide the excited anticipation. “How did it go?”
“I have a map now. I mostly explored a bit, but I haven't entered any specific parts yet.” Renee opens the notebook that was given to her, and she takes out a ripped page from a notepad with a chart of what looks like a mobius strip. “I haven’t covered all the bases, but it’s what it feels like. I know they’ve always been there, but… a map can help me differentiate and seek out specific iterations.”
A map! Of the void! Natalie thought that was impossible at first. Attempting to make a map of the void almost feels like trying to map out every planet in space, or every sand in the beach, and for a while the engineer remembers being afraid that once Renee started exploring, she may not be able to come back as she is. But not only has she done the impossible, she has also mapped it out in something so simple.
“Nat? Nat, are you crying?”
The engineer only felt the tears the second Renee pointed it out, and she smiles as she wipes away what she could. She’s so excited to see her grow, and to see her learn and discover new things and find out about herself, and she could not help but feel that her heart is blooming at it’s prettiest and warmest. “I’m just… I’m very happy for you, ma chérie !”
“I was also going to ask you something about it, actually...” Renee’s hands find their way around Natalie’s, just holding her and taking time to pick out words. “Now that I mapped it out, I was wondering if… well, if you’d like to come explore it with me? Contact some alternate versions of ourselves?”
Natalie didn’t even have to think about it.
“I’d love to explore with you!”