Work Text:
Melissa blinks. The world around her is blurry, unfocused. She reaches up to wipe her eyes, and finds that her hands are stuck together. She wriggles her wrists, and feels metal rub against them. She blinks rapidly, trying to clear the blurriness. When she does, her heart sinks.
She is in a tiny room. The walls are dark, the floors are hard metal. There is no furniture, just a concrete slab that seems to be playacting as a bed. The heavy looking door has bars covering the small window. And her hands are trapped in thick metal handcuffs.
She thinks back. Breaking in, a stealth mission. And then it went wrong. They were swarmed with Normbots, separated, knocked out…
“Zack!” She flies to the barred window, pressing against it. “Dakota! Cavendish!”
“Melissa?” She hears Zack’s voice, muffled by distance and walls but there. “Melissa!”
“Oh thank god.” She breathes, some of the terror falling from her shoulders. “Cavendish? Dakota?”
“Melissa!” Cavendish replies. “Oh thank goodness, you were the last to wake. We were scared that they…” He trails.
“We’re all here, kid.” Dakota adds. Everyone sounds a little pained, a little dazed, but alive. That’s fine. She can work from alive.
“Ok.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Anyone have any idea of where we are? Cavendish?”
“I worked here for a while.” He says grimly. “It’s the maximum security prison- and we’re in the most secure wing of it. For ‘high profile or high risk’ rebels, and traitors.”
“Wow, maybe we should feel flattered.” Melissa snarks, snarking to make herself feel a little less vulnerable. A little less frightened. She doesn’t have time to be frightened. “We need to get out of here. Can we steal authorisation off of the guards?”
“Nearly all personnel in this wing are Normbots. They handle guarding, cleaning, taking food to cells. A Normbot can’t be manipulated like a human can.” Cavendish explains. “No human will ever come near these cells.”
“Great.” Melissa mutters. “Fantastic. I’ll… I’ll think of something, it’ll just be more difficult.” She leans against the door, screwing her face up. “I hope Milo’s ok.” She had been worried enough about leaving him alone, but it was only supposed to be for a night and he was doing so much better. But now it could be for days. She imagines him padding around their small apartment in the morning, wondering why they haven’t come home. Wondering why she abandoned him.
“His sister will look after him.” Dakota reassures her immediately. “He’ll be fine, Melissa. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he’s recovered a lot since we rescued him.”
“I know.” It doesn’t matter. They could be adults, free of Doofensmirtz, free of the Normbots, free of the strangling grip of Milo’s trauma, and she would still worry about him whenever they were separated.
“Hey, that’s a good point.” Zack adds. “The other rebels will come for us, right? Like, Sara’s cell. You mentioned that they’ve done breakouts from the prison before.”
“Not from this wing.” Cavendish says. “The security is ten times the security of the rest of the prison. And they had a good amount of planning time. We have two weeks, maximum- because they kill all prisoners in this wing after two week, even if they don’t give information. It prevents breakouts by limiting the mobilisation of a serious effort.”
“Oh. Ok, ok, ok.” Melissa taps her hands together, trying to calm herself down. “Ok, we can work with that. I can work with that.”
“Sara will still try, right?” Zack tries to be optimistic.
Melissa scoffs, a simmering bitterness rising in her. Once again, anger at Sara is easier than more complex emotions, feels better than fear. “She barely knows you three, and she hates me.”
“That’s not true, Meli-“
“It’s true, she hates me.” Melissa interrupts darkly, anger tainting and twisting her words. “And she couldn’t even be arsed to rescue her own brother until we came up with a plan and were halfway done executing it, and she loves him! So why would she come and rescue us?!”
“Mel-“
“No. We are not relying on Sara. We’ll find a way out ourselves!” Melissa slams her cuffed hands into the door, then stifles her yelp. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll get us out of here, guys, don’t worry.”
It’s still hours before they can do anything. Melissa stands waiting by the door, every muscle in her body tense, clenching and unclenching her fists. She can’t rest, can’t breathe, can’t allow the fear to sneak through the cracks in her fiery armour.
Dakota sits on the concrete slab, resting his head against the wall. Cavendish paces, trying to think of anything that he knows that might be helpful. Trying to ignore the creeping guilt that he feels, being here. Any reminder of his stint working for the emperor always makes the heavy guilt in his stomach creep up and out.
Zack huddles in the corner, pressing his cuffed hands together and trying not to panic. This cell is small, small enough to make his claustroavoidance flair up. And he is scared, scared of being hurt, or killed, or his friends being hurt or killed.
Finally, the door to Melissa’s cell opens. The Normbot reaches for her, but she is already darting past it. She is met by more Normbots than she expected- 16 of them, three to each prisoner. She gulps, but doesn’t let that deter her. She sprints past, placing herself in front of Zack’s door, ready to move when they fire.
Except they don’t fire. They just surround her, grabbing her and pressing her into the wall. She squirms, fighting furiously, but it doesn’t help. One Normbot takes each arm, and they drag her away. Her friends’ yells follow her as she is dragged down the corridor.
They take her through the prison to the interrogation rooms. She is thrown in, restrained to thick, heavy looking chains. And then they leave. She waits, helplessly tugging on the chains. She hates being helpless. Fighting, even uselessly, feels so much better than just waiting for her fate.
Her fate enters the room.
———
Melissa is hauled back to her cell and dropped in. She curls up on the floor, groaning. Waves of pain crash over her body.
She didn’t give anything up. She didn’t give them any information about the rebels or, most importantly, Milo- they kept asking about him, about where to find him, and she didn’t tell them anything. But she isn’t sure how many more sessions of that she can take.
Won’t need to take any more. She reminds herself, gritting her teeth. We’ll break out.
“Melissa?!” Zack yells, worry dripping from his words. She groans, trying to push herself into a sitting position. She rests her head against the cool surface of the door, her eyes sliding shut.
“I’m ok, Zack.” Her voice is strained from the pain. “Didn’t tell the bastards anything.”
“That doesn’t mean that you’re ok.” Zack points out.
Melissa hesitates, the pain letting her armour slip a little. “It hurts. A lot.” She admits. “But I’ll be ok. I- I have to be.” She has to ignore her pain, and her terror, because she’s the leader and she has to save everyone. “I saw a door to the outside, maybe if I… you…” She tries her best to push past the pain to concentrate. To plan.
But nothing works. Her plans fizzle out or blow up in her face. She isn’t sure how long it has been. A day? Longer? Food is delivered, but not much. She is still in pain. Still surrounded herself with fiery armour, armour that burns and burns and hurts and hurts. She is curled up on the hard stone slab, trying not to cry, desperately trying to come up with another escape plan.
She hears the Normbots coming along the corridor and tenses. She wants to try and fight them off, but logically she knows that she can’t. She just prepares herself for the pain.
She hears a cell door open, but when she opens her eyes her cell door is still firmly shut. Then she hears Zack yelp, hears the sounds of a struggle. “Zack!”
She staggers to the door to look out. She sees Zack being dragged out of his cell by the Normbots, and her heart drops. “No! No, stop!” She yells, her voice cracking. “Take me! He- he doesn’t know anything, take me instead! Please!” She yells, begging and pleading and doing anything that she can to bargain for her friend’s safety. But soon Zack’s assurances fade into nothing. He’s gone.
She slides down the door, collapsing in a heap on the floor. Tears drip down her face, making the cuts sting.
“Melissa…” Cavendish’s voice is strained with fear. With guilt. “He’ll…”
“Don’t say that he’ll be ok.” Melissa snaps, dark and bitter, choked with tears. “He won’t be.”
“I know, kiddo.” Dakota sighs.
After what feels like hours, she hears a noise. “Zack?!” She cries out, scrambling to stand up. She sees him be dragged into his cell, then left there. “Zack?” She asks again, more gently.
“H-hey.” Zack manages, his voice weak and hoarse. From screaming. Melissa’s mind supplies, and she has to hold back a sob.
After a while, Zack speaks again. “I didn’t tell them anything.”
“I’m sorry.” Melissa murmurs, her voice straining and tugging on her injuries. “I’ll get us out of here. None of you are going through that again, I promise.”
“It’s not all on your shoulders, Melissa. You’re just a kid.” Dakota says grimly.
Melissa snorts wetly, pressing her face into her knees. “Since when?” She hasn’t been ‘just a kid’ for a long, long time. She doesn’t get to be ‘just a kid’, not anymore. She doesn’t have time for that.
But in this cell, all she seems to have is time. Her plans continue to fail, and her friends keep getting hurt. They are taken away, and they come back in pain. Days must be passing, days where she fights and fights and fails and fails.
And then she is dragged away too, and they hurt her worse than before. She clamps her mouth shut, but screams still slip out. But she stops the words, she doesn’t give them anything information. It hurts so much. But she can’t.
Melissa crumbles onto the floor of her cell. Her eyes flutter, she is unable to keep them open. Everything hurts, like she is on fire, like her armour has turned on her and is burning her away. She whimpers, unable to hold it back.
“Mel?” She hears Zack’s voice. She needs to answer. Needs to reassure him.
“I’m… I’m fine…” She manages, every word hurting. The world around her swims and tilts, like a ride from Before. “I’ll ma’e a new plan, jus’… just give me a bit.”
“Melissa, it’s ok.” Dakota says. “Just rest for now.”
“No, I need to plan… I need to get you out…” Melissa tries to sit up, but just moving sends waves of pain through her. She whimpers, slumping back down as tears run down her broken face.
“Please just rest, Mel.” Zack adds. He sounds so worried. Melissa nods, forgetting in her haze of pain that Zack can’t see that. She allows her armour to burn away, and allows the pain to pull her into the darkness.
———
Loud noises jolt her awake. She hears muffled yelling, banging, possibly explosions? She can’t get a hold on any of the noises. She tries to move, to squirm, but it hurts so much. She whimpers.
“Melissa?”
That voice is so familiar. She is sure that she knows it. But she can’t be here. “Sara?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just me.” The voice gets closer. Sara’s voice is so, so endlessly soft. “I’m here, you’re safe now.”
“Wha… I… why…” Sentences flit around her brain, sentences that she can’t grasp or focus on. She tries to move, and a pained whimper is torn from her throat.
“Hey, hey.” Sara’s voice is still so soft. “Stay still, wildfire. You did so well, and you don’t need to fight anymore. I’m here. You’re going home.” Her warm, rough, calloused hand touches Melissa’s face, wiping something away. Then she carefully picks her up. Melissa flops in her grip, her head lolling against Sara’s chest. Everything still hurts, hurts so much, but she feels safe in Sara’s arms.
So she gives in. She stops fighting, and she gives into the darkness.