Chapter Text
“Give it up Quartich. It’s all over.”
Venom bubbled in Miles’ chest at Sully’s words.
Over? Nothing was over while he was still breathing!
The words boiled in his chest, hot and furious. He wanted to spit them out as if they were a fire that could burn Sully’s fake blue body. Everyone was gone! Fike, Z-dog, Mansk, Lyle…Paz. The entire team gone, killed because he’d trusted Sully. Because he’d foolishly thought of him as one of his own.
Instead the traitor had thrown his kindness back in his face. Instead Sully had killed the same people he’d signed up to protect!
The AMP suit moved as if it was his own body as he flipped the knife into a better position. He’d take Sully down. It would be that last thing he’d do, he knew that much. With every living thing on the god damn moon out for human blood he wouldn’t make it back to base. He’d die no matter what the outcome of their fight was--but he’d rage until his last breath. Take the fucker down with him.
He’d avenge them, all of them, the entire human race!
Something hard pressed against his leg. An outline of a knife. In his mind’s eye he could see it; feel the wood against his rough hands as he carved the handle. It was unfinished and not nearly of the quality he would have liked, but it was there, a present he’d planed on giving one day.
The boy. His son--Paz’s…she was gone. In his mind's eye he could see it; the cold, grey of the medical wing and his boy waiting for the warmth of a mother he'd never see again. Little Miles--she’d named the boy after him, mostly just to annoy him, yet it marked him even more as his son. The boy's mother was already dead, and soon his father would be too.
The venom in his throat died even if the heat of his hatred still burned him from the inside.
Miles was the last one standing. The last one still alive that gave a shit about his boy. If he kept fighting, even if he managed to kill Sully, they had still lost.
That single word took hold of his heart and crushed it into a fine paste. They’d lost--he’d lost. The thought only made him want to beat Sully into the ground even more, to drag his human body from the safety of the portable lab behind him and show him just how much he too was nothing but a human being, no different than the men and women he'd just slaughtered. Watch him choke and gasp for air on a planet that hated him just as much it hated the rest of them.
But it didn’t help his boy back at base. What would it matter to him if his father died some hero if he was left to the wolves? Parker wouldn’t give two shits about Miles’ son, not after he’d threatened him. The company wouldn’t look out for him--those slippery fucks would find any excuse to weasel out of paying the boy any of the insurance money he’d be owned. The people most loyal to him were nothing but body parts strewn across the jungle floor. Without him his son was all but screwed.
A snarl was pulled from some dark place in his body as he found the strength to throw the AMP’s knife to the ground.
“I surrender, you god damn son of bitch!” He spit before his pride could stop him. “I’m waving the metaphorical white flag! Happy now, Sully?”
It felt like he’d crumpled his past as a Marine up into a bawl and taken a shit on it. The words left his throat raw, his heart racing. He was disgusted in himself, no less a traitor then Sully to all the good people he'd lead into battle.
It wouldn’t even save his skin. Sully would still kill him, either ignore his words and attack anyway, or have him executed later. He was the enemy general--he wasn’t getting off Pandora alive. If Sully spared him the natives surly wouldn’t. Instead of dying in one last act of glory, taking as many enemies as he could with him, he’d be offed without a weapon in hand, a coward who'd given up the fight.
Across from him Sully’s na’vi googly eyes started at him in shock. Despite there differences they were both Marines and he could tell Sully had been itching for the fight. He’d wanted to cut out Miles’ heart as much as he'd wanted to watch Sully cough on his own blood. He may have offered Miles a way out, but he hadn’t meant it--it’d only been his attempt to rub salt in his wounds, to gloat about his victory.
Sully never expected him to take it.
But he had a kid and parents were supposed to give their lives for them. He may not have purposely had the little boy, but he’d still sired him. Paz had wanted him. She’d already died for him--trying to protect humanity itself. Miles could have ordered her to stay, but he hadn’t and so it was his turn to sacrifice for the kid.
“This some sort of trick, Quaritch?”
If he hadn’t been so furious he would have laughed. How stupid could Sully be? There was no one left--Sully and his native pals had made sure of that. He had no more troops, no more ships, or guns. What sort of trick could he pull off all by himself with one AMP suit?
He ripped off the control gloves, before attaching his mask. It was an action he’d taken so many times in the past. It had always been so mundane, yet in that moment it felt monumental. When he hit the button that depressurized the cabin and lifted the reinforced glass of the the cockpit he felt, for the first time since he was a teenager, small and helpless.
“There is no trick you traitorous piece of shit.” He growled out, raising his hands in a way he never would have dreamed of doing only a few minutes ago. “I just have obligations and unlike you I do what I need to for those that depend on me.”
If anyone was one of his own it was his son. He’d failed his team, his friends and comrades. He couldn’t fail his son, he couldn’t fail Paz for a second time. He’d die anyway, some cowards death on some alien chopping block, but if he could set his son up with a home, and the money from the RDA he was promised then it was a better start in life then he’d have if he left his boy to fend for himself.
Having a father who died in action as War Hero sounded great on paper, but it didn’t get you a roof over your head or clothes on your back. His son wouldn’t admire Miles’ patriotic sacrifice much if he was on the streets back on Earth or tossed in some shit orphanage. At least those were the thoughts that he used to try and sooth the bitter hate in his gut.
The sound of a twig snapping barely drew his attention, his eyes squarely on Sully. Instead he watched as those silly Na’vi ears of his swiveled around and his golden eyes flicked to somewhere behind them.
In mere moments Sully’s expression changed from one of confusion to a panicked sort of surprise. He lunged forward, and Miles had a few seconds to curse his stupidity. Of course the traitor wasn’t going to let him live long enough to make it back to base. The natives hadn’t signed the Geneva Convention, and Sully didn’t give a shit about him. Why had he been stupid enough to believe for even a moment that Sully would take his surrender and not run him through with a knife as soon as he let his guard down. It seemed he was always trusting Sully and the man was always ready to stab him in the back with it.
Miles grabbed at his side piece, pulling it from it’s holster, but as he brought the gun up to shoot, he realized Sully had charged past him. Wind rushed past his face before he registered one of the na’vi’s massive arrows had just missed him. Miles would have been confused if his gaze hadn’t found Sully and his blue girlfriend a few feet away.
They were yelling at one another in the native tongue he’d never bothered to learn more then a few words of.
The gun was still in his hands. With them distracted he could get off a few shots. With the small caliber it probably wouldn’t kill them both, or even one of them, but it could do some damage. The thought was tempting, his Marine training in particular screaming at him to take the shot.
But he thought of the baby in the infirmary waiting for a mother that wasn’t coming back.
Instead he took a moment to really look at the two arguing blue cats and could saw the bow between them. As little as he liked to admit it, it seemed Sully had saved his life, messing up his woman’s aim and keeping her from firing again. She was clearly unhappy with that choice given her tone, and Quaritch wondered if Sully’s retorts were his attempt to explain human conduct around surrender. Either way he did not envy him.
With a long breath Miles reupholstered his gun--if Sully asked for it later he could have it but he’d keep it as long as possible. The fatigue was starting to set in, his adrenaline starting to fade away. His body ached something awful and he cursed his age as he relaxed back into the cockpit, waiting for the two to finish their lover’s quarrel.
He rubbed at his bad knee, feeling the hand-made knife in his pocket right above it. Despite the objects purpose to kill, it’s presence had, for the moment, kept him alive. Without it he might not have thought of his boy back at base, his rage and pride to thick in the heat of battle to remember his obligations as a father. He wasn’t necessarily proud of himself, or even happy he was going to see to his son’s future, but responsibility wasn’t always pleasant, and regardless Miles in the very least fulfilled his duty to those who depended on him.