Chapter Text
The evening's quiet. There's nothing stirring, just a chill in the air and leftover haze… but tonight's regularly scheduled serenity will have to wait.
It used to be the same as any other road out in the desert, and not all that long ago it was: between here and nowhere, sun setting in a band just past the horizon. Now is different. Now it's playing host to a high speed pursuit by force, both vans carelessly tearing up the road as they pass all else by. Yet as doggedly persistent as their pursuit has been and is, the Deadlock Rebels are far from gaining.
Alas, their hollering isn't making that much of a difference, and P.T. withdraws from hanging out the window to better incentivise.
"You call this 'stepping on it'? We're gonna lose them at this rate—"
"I'm doing the best I can here," Zeke scowls at the wheel, his eyes off the target more a hindrance than a help as all three brothers are sent scrambling when hover hits dirt instead of road – dustier, rockier dirt. That and it really only serves to make P.T. vent his flow of criticisms at him all the louder whilst Terran taps his earpiece, leaving them to it.
"Where's the Boss?"
Static. Bars never says much, but his silence speaks volumes.
An hour. Just one measly hour they'd been left in charge of, and of course the goods they'd been collectively tracking for weeks had to finally come through town in that self-same hour, and now they're out here running rod-shod over what feels like half the state with nothing yet to show for it.
The vehicle in front's only getting further away. Too much practice at shaking tails, remarkably adaptable as a result, and in a few minutes? Nada. Empty air. Determination doesn't always result in caches nicely gift-wrapped, but their self-appointed leader is very particular about her success, and that ain't it. What they need is clever ideas and someone else to play for bait, and those are both commodities that are in short supply at the moment.
"Shit, we can't just come back to the hideout like this," Terran curses, if only because their leader will never gift them responsibility ever again if they mess this one up. "There's gotta be a way. Cut him off, Zeke!"
"There's not exactly a lot of buildings out in the desert for him to do that with, genius—"
"If you two want to drive, get over here and be my guest or shut up—"
The bickering escalates. The out-of-reach van pulls further ahead with a burst of speed, a conciliatory plume of dust in its wake as it rapidly departs, and even as the triplets' thoughts align back, it looks to be a lost cause.
Or it was, until the hoverbike revs past them.
The boys whoop in her ear and through cracked windows as she races by, just as she expected they would, and Ashe laughs, tongue in her cheek. "Miss me?"
She'll take their continued gratitude for her timely arrival as a resounding yes. Alright, so maybe she deliberately hadn't checked in for the last half hour just for this reaction, absolutely one she deserves that simultaneously fuels her – but equally she has her excuses. That she had to focus on breaking speed limits and getting herself here in an immediate, drop-everything-she's-doing fashion, and now she is here she hasn't the time for their petty squabbling when there's a job still to be done.
"We're making it out with what we want," the outlaw declares, swapping the rest out for sheer belief. "Just follow our lead."
She glances to where Amélie's leaning past her so that she can better see the convoy, taking it all in. And although there's not much more she can communicate to her in a look than that right now, Ashe still feels a slender, weighted touch against her shoulder, because her spider likes that she said our.
Well, it is. Theirs, and all that. She's intrinsic. Essential; wouldn't dream of doing any of this without her.
Thing is, their opposition's played a good game. Sent her gang on a merry chase, interrupted her date… and on top of that, almost got away with the goods. But Calamity Ashe always gets what she wants. Today her underlings will escape her fury, because it's just not necessary.
And now that the two of them are here, it's over.
She puts the bike through its paces just as she has all night. Faster, faster still, specifically tailored for exactly this and not at all laden down by cargo, and she easily catches up. The van swerves, trying to knock them off course when she starts pulling up alongside – but Ashe expects that, and the outlaw hits the brakes hard, leaving white hoverburn marks on the road as she reorients toward the passenger side instead, her advantage in shorter recovery time, and that's Amélie's moment to strike.
She hasn't done this before, Ashe doesn't think. But Amélie still propels herself from the side of the hoverbike like it isn't, confident and decisive and fast, heels scraping metal as she heaves herself up onto the roof using the provided steel frame in case something needs to be stored up there… assassins named Widowmaker, for instance. The strength she expels through all that? Mesmorising. There's probably pandemonium inside the van right about now – Ashe can imagine the ominous thonk thonk thonk ricocheting underfoot from her spider's boots, all for dramatic effect – and the moment she sees Amélie disappear through the hatch to disperse its occupants, mask pulled up to protect her from the poison mist she's just thrown in, Ashe pulls her bike in front.
Brakes slam to avoid her and the van skids sideways – straight to where the triplets are, just as she knew they would be. The metal box careens dangerously, trapped in a choke as it's led and corralled, but what Ashe is really waiting for is when those inside will stop fighting.
It doesn't take long. It's a privilege, to be so utterly dressed down by Amélie, all without intent to kill. It's kind of a shame she doesn't get to see her at work, but as Ashe thinks it her girlfriend reappears in the front compartment.
The last of them, the driver, doesn't take kindly to that. But his hands are full, and oh, he won't win. He tries – scuffles a moment, forced persuasion to move aside as she wins the one sided bout: holding the man at length against the window one handed until he's unconscious, and all that's left to do is for the trio of vehicles to slow, coming to a halt.
There. That's how you pull off an in-momentum robbery.
Working out just as she'd planned it, give or take a few details. Not that she was worried; the rush in the moment has a tendency to consume, and usually it serves. The adrenaline for it is still in her fingers, and Ashe shakes out her hands as she steps off the bike.
It really is the backend of nowhere, Ashe notes, finally having the opportunity to take the place in. Moon hanging low now the sun's gone, a slight smattering of stars overhead, miles away from any civilisation or landmark… they sure chose a place to do business, and it's almost disappointing. Cities are more fun. There's more danger then too, but there's simply nothing out here. Dunes are just sand, and not the beach kind. In your hair, in your boots, grit maybe stuck in your eye. And cacti. Lots and lots of rocks and cacti.
Still, she can't really comment. That's what you get when you choose to operate out of places stuck nigh a century or more in the past, and a home is what you make of it. But she's not really thinking about any of that anymore when she takes off her helmet about the same time Amélie winds down the driver-side window, lowering her mask past her chin.
Not a hair out of place. Gallantry in that little smile of hers. And perfect.
She should have brought the camera. She really didn't think she'd ever wear the yellow bandana of her own choosing – never mind everything else synonymous. Ashe can't even see most of her attire right now, but she knows it. Remembers. The black leather, the boots; the jacket Amélie had wanted her to get, embroidered with the Deadlock Rebels' insignia on the back…
Memo to past Ashe: the ensemble? Everything you failed to persuade her to wear that first heist? It did happen. Be jealous. Present Ashe certainly feels gifted, and certifiably humbled when Amélie deigns to further smile at her for their success as she approaches.
"Nice take," Ashe manages after a moment, remembering words.
"It's a good haul," Amélie says knowingly – that's definitely a smug look on her face and it does things – and as much as Ashe wants to see what they've successfully acquired, first of all she needs to kiss her girlfriend on tiptoe for her part in it, scraping dirt underfoot as she gets her angle right, so needlessly high up; easily remedied when Amélie's there to catch her. "Even if it did ruin our date."
She's lamenting, but Ashe grins in her mouth. "Ruined? Nah. I'm still counting it as going well," she muses, breathy. Giving her an actual once over now she's nearer. "Do you know how long I've waited to see you dressed like this?"
Amélie rolls her eyes, but she's still smiling. "Eons."
"Eons," Ashe labours, as good a word as any. "And you look damn good, sugar."
"I do look good," Amélie agrees, smiling wider; rewarding her with another kiss against her cheek, brushing dislodged hair from Ashe's eyes. "As do you."
She's not really dressed much differently from usual. But perhaps that's the highest flattery: the best sort of compliment, for just being herself.
Ashe steps back as Amélie exits the van. The driver's still unconscious behind her – same as the rest of her carnage, Ashe'd figure, and they'll probably want to leave them lined up out here against the vehicle once they have what they came for. She could take the car too, strip it down… but the demand's not really there as of late. And how else will she get notoriety out in the desert if she doesn't leave them a means to get out of it?
Maybe Amélie's mercy is having an effect on her; maybe. Food for thought. For now, Ashe wordlessly joins her at the back of the van to start unloading the excess into theirs.
The tip-off was solid, not that she doubted her spider's prior assessment, and Ashe exhales a low whistle at the quantity. The buyers she has in mind are going to be clamouring when they catch wind of it, and she's even thinking of buying the boys an extra round of drinks for taking the initiative at getting themselves out here by the time P.T. also appears to help. Zeke stacks things up nice and neat, and Terran elects for lookout duty as they go, and all in all the process passes fairly quickly.
All that's left is the people; and her glee. The sorry lot will wake in a few hours with their tails between their legs – but as ever, Deadlock will be long gone, already making money move with that which is now hers.
Ashe loves success. But most of all, what she really, truly loves is winning.
Amélie enjoys it too. Not as much as her, but she does. Yet it's inevitable she'll find something to inspire the small, pensive frown, and it appears gradually, settles about the time they've moved the driver from the van to be with the rest of his fellows.
She'll tell her what's on her mind. She's confident she will.
"Do you think Bob can make us something to eat for when we get back?"
Ashe laughs. Food. Thinking of it this whole time and not just now, noticing her preoccupied with something the minute they rode out here, just not sure what. And now with the job concluded, it's important.
"Oh he'll be delighted," she says. It's what he does. Please people. Afternoon snack, midnight tea – you want it, he'll go and get it, and a date where you had to skip out on the meal before any of it was ever served, and you'd also already paid for it? Brutal. Worth at least two courses of the best dishes in his repertoire, and Bob has a lot to show off with. "Just ask."
She nods. That hunger dealt with, she lingers on her second, a finger on Ashe's tie pin. "And us?"
"I've still got plans for us," Ashe says softly, only for Amélie to hear. "If you're up for them."
- - - -
"Business or pleasure?"
Amélie's laid her down on their bed. She's holding her restrained, sort of; not allowing her enough height to reach her retreating lips but leaning back in anyway so that she can catch them, briefly, back and forth.
She could if she wanted to. If she really tried, but that's not the game. Ashe hums contemplatively, stealing more. Basking in her lover's presence. The question's good but there's really only one answer she can give as her smile spreads, chasing after her again.
"Why not both?"
"I knew," Amélie murmurs under her breath, on her way down, "that you'd say that, chérie…"
This time she skips her mouth entirely, her teeth lingering against her collarbone.
Ashe laughs in delight; a husky reverb that swells in her ribs, rising up her throat where it's barely more than the smile in which it ends. She snares her fingers along her girlfriend's shoulders to her neck, holding her in place.
"After all…" the outlaw starts, even as her concentration shatters, Amélie so insistent. She wants every bit of her affection, all of her, and Ashe thrums her approval as they both continue. "Why kill what you could kiss?"
She can say it, now that it's dealt with: and Amélie chuckles darkly against her neck.
"You wish."
"You wish," Ashe says knowingly, grinning with her eyes closed, even if it is what she also wants.
She hears her move. Granting it. "Yes," Amélie reasons. "I do."
Ashe mumbles. Abstract thoughts and promises as she pulls her closer whilst they kiss. Where Amélie's only happy to be, her breath and its harbour hers.
That's why she has to.
"I still need to do that one thing."
Amélie knows.
It's not entirely why she's doing this. But if Ashe must – and she does, and she will – then she'll leave her with the reminder of what could be. Who she's missing. That she wants nothing more than her tonight.
"Always one more deal to make," Amélie says, sighing. Can't wait, can't be helped, even if her outlaw's earlier plans were once wholly different. Neither are her words really a lament, because she will have her after – and tomorrow, the day after that. And more so, now this present job's checked and done, waiting on those she's already contacted getting back to her with things that they want, that Ashe can provide.
But that's not the point.
Still, sullen doesn't suit her. She'll be understanding, or gracious: compromising, and Amélie kisses her one last time, giving her freedom to leave.
She's gone, just like that. "Go on and shower," Ashe says, whisking herself away to the other side of the room past the chaise, where her laptop is. "I'll join you when I'm done here."
There's a suggestion there, Amélie notes. Even if Ashe isn't fully paying attention to it, already busy. She's never been unable to win her over. She hasn't failed, if she doesn't try. For a moment Amélie just stays as she is, lying with her head on the pillow watching Ashe tap keys, daydreaming eventualities…
Until the idea of being clean wins out, anyway.
Despite her inclination, Ashe never makes it to the shower, and she took her time. And whilst she's more than casual acquaintances with the concept of patience, admittedly Amélie feels more than a little disappointed that she didn't when she re-emerges back into their bedroom in loungewear, wondering what it is that's got its claws so firmly in her girlfriend, why she's never been specific as to what that one thing is, that this also isn't the first time… and then she forgets her considerations entirely, Ashe's absence apparent, because she's fallen asleep in her chair.
She's slumped sideways at the table, the palm pressing into angular cheekbones the only thing keeping her upright, mouth slightly apart. Her face is awash with the blue-white light from the monitor, and she doesn't resurface as Amélie stops beside her, shaking her head, fondly.
"What am I going to do with you, Elizabeth," she muses to herself. Ashe dropping off happens irregularly, infrequently – usually elsewhere in the hideout. Where Bob will pick her up and bring her back. Or she'll be persuaded awake long enough to make her way upstairs herself. It seems pointless to do that now, somehow; there are better ways, and Amélie's always been capable of doing them.
She takes her time with it. Slowly lowers Ashe's hand from her face and catches her as she leans precariously, hands and fingers rearranged around her neck secure – and then she picks her up. It's less like the beach; more like the theatre. Most like a fairytale. A slumbering princess retrieved from her tower safe and sound, head tucked against her chest.
She loves her. Always. But it's when she's this vulnerable that she falls: in love with her, more.
She carries her to their bed, laying her on top of it. Her lips hover over hers, parted in anticipation or suspense – testing, to see if she's awake or holding her breath, and it doesn't seem so – and Amélie whispers, with a hint of a smile. "Now I have one over you."
"Nuh uh," Ashe murmurs – and then she's sleep again.
Amélie chuckles. "I do," she insists gently, to nothing. "Fais de beaux rêves, ma chérie…"
Dreams she'll be in, if she'd like her to be.
Perhaps she should join her. It is late, she supposes; sleep the order of things. Wrap her arms around this woman she adores and welcome every tomorrow, no matter what it brings, the gentlest of hours they get to spend. So much history. And yet—
She can't help it. Or herself.
The screen's off, now Ashe is gone; facial recognition. But the foreign object lying beneath the keys isn't protected by that, the interface keyboard flickering as her hand passes through it.
It's familiar, and Amélie knows it.
She had thought what's been repeatedly occupying Ashe was perhaps a job, but it's not. It's this – this small cylindrical device that had incapacitated Bob at the museum when Ashe had faced Mauga alone, that Amélie had assumed had been left behind in their hastened departure… but not so surprisingly hasn't, Ashe's many sleepless nights spent trying to find rhyme or reason to its ownership perhaps, how it works, what it does – that any debilitation won't happen to any of the omnics she calls family ever again.
Because it's a threat. Because she's too sentimental.
She didn't hear her move, but she knows Ashe is at her shoulder.
Her outlaw sighs, announcing herself. "I didn't want you to worry."
"You should have just asked me," Amélie says. Not for any other reason than that she has at least some of the answers her girlfriend's been trying desperately to find.
But she never gets to elaborate, as Ashe interjects, adamant.
"We decided – well Bob did, actually, but between us – that we should try and riddle out everything it does and how to prevent it, else he wouldn't be able to protect me and you."
She looks back at her. Ashe is serious; rightfully concerned, eyes wide and exposed – and although she's saying the both of them Ashe really just means her spider, and Amélie's heart… flutters.
She'd forgotten. One of the last things to go.
That although she can and will insist she can do all things for herself, she couldn't. And inevitably they had all given up on her; her own doing. She'd severed it. Widowmaker and Amélie. She was alone… but now she's not.
Such a spindling little feeling, this—
The people who love her, wanting her to be safe.
"Oh," Amélie says, eloquently.
"Yeah," Ashe manages, a hand in her hair because she's embarrassed. That she kept it to herself, that she couldn't find a solution and that's her job; that the only way she's worth something is if she keeps proving it. Amélie knows how to read her now. Long learned insular behaviour, and she always gets like this. "I know I should've just told you. I thought I had it, that I could give you good news. I should— I didn't think it'd take nights, weeks and I'd have nothing to show for it…"
She trails off. "Next time you should," Amélie allows her. She could be stern but she isn't, quieter, because Ashe is beating herself up enough: and she isn't blameless. She should have offered it, regardless of Ashe retaining the device or no. And—
It might be Bob's preservation. It might be Deadlock, and for that Ashe is irrefutably in charge. But she doesn't have to do it all alone, to take everything upon herself. That, her outlaw should know.
And if it is about keeping her safe… it's something they've always done, and can keep doing, together.
She's trying to be open. Readable, even if Ashe is refusing to further engage with her at all because she's frustrated by perceived failure, and more sufficiently worried, thinking she's messed up and driven her away; another brick crumbling from that perfect façade. Amélie exhales, very gently, turning toward Ashe's bitten lip and hard stare at the floor, taking her hands in hers.
"Ashe," she says, softly. "When are you going to realise that you can tell me anything?"
She's got her. Judged her, completely, and Ashe half-smiles, spent; an echo of her earlier far-away laugh as she glances back toward her.
"I'm not very good at that."
So used to not. The admission is itself a progress, and Amélie shakes her head, very slight.
"You don't have to be," she says. "I only want for you to try… for however long it takes us. And I shall do the same."
Equals. That's all she's ever asked. Ashe nods, bowing her head: not as strong as she pretends to be, for a moment. And not the next moment either when Amélie's fingers rest against her cheek, and her outlaw holds them there, secure.
It's enough. "You should ask me about it now," Amélie adds. "But not for the reasons you're thinking, chérie, because I… already have the answers you're looking for, about who it belongs to. And what that person can do."
Someone who perhaps involved herself in the proposed extraction intentionally to orchestrate contact of her own, which was why her things were left behind in easy reach. Now Amélie has time to consider it without fear in tow, it seems… obvious.
Ashe blinks at her, surprised. It's something her girlfriend would do, to see the end result rather than the muddied middle – really feeling the fool for not asking the former member of Talon about a Talon device, even if admittedly it wasn't marked as one, but Amélie doesn't call her out on it any further. Better to just demonstrate, releasing the one hand that's still holding hers and dexterously spinning the black cylinder over for the calling card she's seeking, less obnoxious now it isn't in use.
"Here," she says, pointing with her little finger. And Amélie glances to the conspicuously lifeless laptop and sighs, because she knows tonight's business is now far from over. "She's probably been waiting for me to reply."