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Wei Chen is not a sentimental man. He is pragmatic, first, foremost, above all else. He gets the mission done. He is put back together with militant delicacy. He keeps going.
That’s why he keeps the flag, the book, and the chip.
Whenever those distracting, delaying thoughts resurface, he can reach into his lowest desk drawer and pull one out.
He can unfold the flag, just a shade off ranger blue, and reread once more the cheaply printed text on it. “We do this not because it is easy,” it says in bold capitals, “ but because we thought it would be easy.” There’s a darker corner near the top where the beating sun from the window never angled to hit.
Anathema had brought it in one afternoon while Ortega was off galavanting with the new vigilante sneaking around their territory. They had waltzed in, Sunstream giggling at their side. Sentinel had taken one look at them, took a sip of his coffee, and immediately flew out the window. Undeterred by this snub of their mischief, Anathema turned their gaze upon Chen.
“Hey Steel, so y’know how Ricky’s always saying how drab HQ is? Well I took it upon myself to, ah, get some decor. Something relatable, something motivational.” An arm slung over his shoulders would have matched their grin, but they never got close enough to that, not even considering the height discrepancy.
He had glared at them like they didn't have a handful of years left to live. He refused to budge and ask, knowing that they’d reveal whatever it was on their own soon enough.
Maintaining eye contact, Anathema pulled something rich and royal blue from their pocket. With a flick it unfolded in all of its absurd glory.
He remembers his jaw twitching. Teeth clenched. None of them were here because they thought it would be “fun” or “easy” as the flag claimed. They all had graveyards in their closets. But, and he never once admitted this out loud, it was funny as fuck.
Sunstream certainly thought so and had no inhibitions about making that known. Anathema, having gotten whatever reaction they had wanted out of his face, hurried off to find thumbtacks, or maybe an actual hammer.
It hung crooked on the wall until Ortega could no longer bear it. It was one of those nights that blended together after Heartbreak, just Ortega and Chen and the beer to keep them company. He had ripped it off the wall, tearing one of its corners.
Chen runs his thumb over that corner now, new hands able to feel exactly how much it's frayed since.
He talked Ortega into whatever approached calm in those days and grabbed the flag, shoving it in his desk drawer just to get it out of sight.
He is a pragmatic man. With this flag, Anathema’s death has dimension, has a clear start and end. He can run his hand from one synthetic seam to another, and have his grief end there.
Deep breath. Fold the flag neatly, point to point, till it makes a triangle in your hands. Let thoughts of better flags on worse coffins pass over your mind. Close the drawer. Focus.
The book feels… He’s not sure. Silly? Worse? It’s bubblegum pink with fuchsia lace trim up the spine, all frills and sap. Lightning Strikes Twice, a trashy romance novel involving Charge and Sidestep that somehow managed to be published under parody rights.
Another one of Anathema’s gifts. They had given every member of the team a copy as soon as it came out. Sidestep had been sitting there with their mask off, so rarely true around him, but the camaraderie of a fight well fought and the lure of whatever Ortega was cooking in Anathema’s kitchen was too much to hold onto all their defenses.
They had unwrapped the entirely seasonally inappropriate paper with first a sterile efficiency, then as if noticing the fragility of the wrapping for the first time, began to tear through the paper with reckless abandon. Surrounded by festive shrapnel, before them laid a book bearing their own self in a dramatic embrace with Ortega, heart shaped sparkles surrounding their almost kiss. At the time he had thought their growing expression was like an alien attempting to cobble together what joy might look like on an unfamiliar face.
Now he thinks of it not like the sun coming out, but more like they had jumped into a puddle and found out their shoes were waterproof. A completely unexpected delight that one can't help but be astonished by.
They had cackled and kicked Anathema in the shins and shouted for Ortega because “you will not fucking believe this shit!” They wiped tears from their eyes as they wondered “how is this even legal?” and “this barely even looks like me!” Chen had been fine to let himself fade into the warm background, beer in hand and brow less heavy than it'd been recently. It was in interludes like this that made him wonder if his distrust was misplaced.
He didn’t have much time to reconsider, as they died three months later.
Take the book in both hands. Feel the spineless paperback give under the strength of your mechanical fingers. Let your doubt flow into it, and let it end at the edge of its pages. Let the sharp square corners contain it, trap it, put it out of your mind. Place the book back in the drawer.
He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and breathes in, counting like a metronome. Out. Again. He opens his eyes to the blue light of his computer. He has work to do. He will get it done.
The chip isn’t actually in his office. It’s at home, next to old medals and older pictures. A nicked and scratched poker chip that, even with its color rubbing away, still brings back fond memories.
It used to have brothers, a whole fleet of chips in an array of colors for all a gambler’s needs. That was before the box got passed off him and Ortega, both trying to power through rehab as quick as they could. Fine motor controls of the digits were the hardest to reprogram and relearn. So they practiced, delicate playing cards and brittle poker chips. They built houses and flicked them over, trying not to bend them in half. They played rummy and war and go fish and avoided slap because neither of them were that stupid. But more than that they played poker. Hand after hand after hand. They used the chips to bet money they didn't have, would never have, and cracked them in half more often than they didn't.
Just the one remains now. A lucky gold bastard that Ortega used to twirl through his fingers and charm girls with. It always got a laugh and a blush out of them.
After a fight gone wrong, too soon after Heartbreak to remind them of anything else, Ortega decided to give it to him.
He had wrapped himself around Chen’s back and slid a hand to the front of his armor. There, he tapped the chip against his chestplate, like he was trying to put a quarter into a vending machine blind.
“Ortega, what are you doing?” he had said, scrabbling for purchase.
“I want you to have it. God knows I have enough luck. Might as well spread it around.” He tapped it against him again. “It’s like a token at an arcade. One extra life.” Chen had steadfastly ignored how close it was to his heart. He thought instead about how drunk Ortega must be. He didn’t like this new habit of giving away things he holds dear.
In the dark, in the hope that Ortega might not remember or have the awareness to read into it, Chen put his hand over Ortega’s, metal to buzzing skin.
“You’re my best friend Wei, please don’t die.” A thin bolt of electricity had found its way through Chen’s armor. It made his heart skip a beat. Literally. His hair stood on end and he knew that if Ortega pushed too much more, he might actually kill him.
Focus.
He took the chip from Ortega and put him to bed on his beat up couch. He went home. Luck wouldn’t do him any good. Marshals don’t need luck. They need intelligence, and discipline, and spine. Marshals needed to get the job done no matter the cost. Luck has nothing to do with it.
He’s not sure how it moved from his closet floor to his sock drawer to the middle of his bookshelf of memories. It watches him function, a golden eye monitoring the few moments he spends at home. He’d cover it or move it, but that would be an admission of its power over him. It is an absurd, silly paranoia that he pays no respect to.
He glares it down from across the room. It stares back. Impassive. Calm. He breaks first.
He has work to do.
(He doesn’t have anything from Soo. He was lost behind enemy lines and his bunk was stripped by the time Chen found out. He doesn’t even have the hands he held him with. Those, he supposes, are his to keep.)