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Firefly sighed deeply as the hot water ran down her bare skin, washing away the latest mission’s sweat and grime. She’d knew not to take showers for granted, even now that she was a Stellaron Hunter. They traveled constantly, without a central base or headquarters, staying at interstellar motels, or abandoned houses, or occasionally co-opting a mansion via Kafka or Silver Wolf when they felt they really deserved it.
It wasn’t always a glamorous life. But Firefly would be lying if she said it wasn’t fun. The roles that each of the Stellaron Hunters played varied from world to world; who would take point, and who would handle extraction. This most recent time was a particularly odd change of pace, with Silver Wolf having to physically go to a Junker World to retrieve an artifact for an upcoming script, and Firefly needing to get her out of there.
Firefly wasn’t subtle. She’d never claimed to be. But on missions like this one, that lack of subtlety was really obvious. Whereas Kafka might’ve been able to use Spirit Whisper to distract people, and buy time for Silver Wolf to reality hack a door out, Firefly burned down half a city to cover their tracks. By the end of it, both of them were kind of a wreck, and Silver Wolf made the executive decision that they were staying in a nice hotel for the night before meeting the rest of the team the next day.
Which was what was now allowing Firefly to take an exquisite shower, temperature cranked all the way up, watching as rivulets of water traced lines down her body. Through the shower glass, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, and sighed deeply. She looked good, but there was always an element of disassociation when she stared at her reflection. Her body was hers, she did her best to reinforce that understanding wherever she could, but there were aspects of it that didn’t align with her ideal version of herself.
Unfortunately, the door suddenly swinging open forced Firefly to abruptly confront those aspects. She shrieked, and scrambled to hide her body in one of the parts of the shower not directly revealed by glass. “Excuse me,” Firefly exclaimed, “I’m in here!”
“Duh.” Silver Wolf rolled her eyes. “I need your help deciding who to pull for.”
“It can wait 5 minutes!”
“Firefly, you take way longer showers than that. And also this banner rolls over at midnight, so I gotta choose fast. I literally saved your life today, least you could do is help me pick.”
She wanted to argue, to point out that she’d saved Silver Wolf’s life at least as many times as the reverse, but realized it wasn’t worth it. Besides, at least as long as her teammate was pulling, their eyes were firmly glued to the phone, and not looking anywhere in the vicinity of the shower. Which was mostly fogged up anyways. Firefly took a deep breath. “Sure, whatever, go for it.”
“Okay so, Blake is new, so obviously she’s broken, and a bunch of the upcoming enemies have Salt as a weakness, but I really don’t need more Soldiers at this point until I start trying to do full clears of Back Streets. Then on the other hand, Charles is one of my little guys, and I need more Control characters, plus it is his second rerun so who knows when he’ll be back. But also like…he came out a year and a half ago so there’s no shot he’s going to keep being relevant with the new endgame content coming out next patch.”
Silver Wolf paused, patiently waiting for a response. Firefly knew from experience that the hacker could go on for much longer if she so chose, that she was practicing a truly titanic amount of restraint. “How many pulls do you have left?”
“Thirty.”
“Pity?”
“Forty by now. Statistically likely to get one, but no shot I get both.”
Firefly closed her eyes, thinking. Then it came to her, the perfect way to get Silver Wolf out. “Go grab my wallet, it should be by the bed. Do another 30 pulls on each, my treat.” They just got paid, anyways.
“Shit, really?” Silver Wolf’s voice betrayed a childlike joy that made Firefly chuckle. “Okay, great. Thank you! I’m gonna just do the Blake pulls first here, while you’re around for luck.”
She groaned. Immediately she regretted doing it, it shouldn’t have slipped out, but here they were.
“Something is wrong.” Silver Wolf stated it like an absolute fact. “Normally you’d be excited to watch me pull. What’s up?”
“I—” Firefly’s voice caught in her throat. How the hell was she meant to answer that? “I’m in the middle of a shower!”
“So?”
“Usually people get privacy when they do that.”
Silver Wolf cocked her head, confusion spreading across her face. “Girl, I have wallhax. Privacy is fake as fuck. Would be if I was in this room, or in the bedroom.”
She wanted to throw up.
She felt her legs get shaky, and suddenly she was sitting down, on the shower floor, grabbing her knees and holding them close. Trying to curl up, and disappear.
Firefly knew that Silver Wolf had some sensory capabilities like that, they’d worked together for long enough for it to come up. She didn’t realize it was on all the time.
The walls felt like they were closing in. The water was running down her face, and some of it was salty. Silver Wolf knew. She had to. Would she tell the others? Her heart was about to beat out of her chest, and everything felt far too much.
The water turned off. Silver Wolf must have done that. Even with her head buried against her knees, she could feel the disturbance in the air as her teammate reached towards her shoulder. “Don’t touch me,” Firefly spat, vitriol filling her voice. “Stay away.”
Her skin was burning hot, and she had to fight every urge to just let loose and burn the hotel down.
And then suddenly the water was back on, as cold as it could possibly be.
Firefly shrieked, and batted at it, feeling the tension rapidly leave her body as she was grounded in this moment. “What the fuck?”
“Look, I paid good money for this room, I’m not gonna let you burn it to ashes.” Silver Wolf’s voice was full of conviction, which lasted for about a second before she burst into laughter.
“Hey!” Firefly said indignantly. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Her teammate did sound genuinely apologetic. The water shut off. “Look, I don’t know how to ask this tactfully…”
“Just be blunt. I’m ready for it.”
“Is this about your dick?”
Maybe she wasn’t ready for it. She should’ve been, it wasn’t like Silver Wolf could’ve said it any more bluntly. But still, all the scenarios in her head had involved a much more painstaking process, filled with more accusations or confusion. “I...I guess? Kinda?”
“Okay, better way of saying this. Was that reaction because I’ve seen you naked?”
“Yes. And I’m scared you’re going to freak out, and tell everyone.”
“That you have a dick.”
She grabbed one of the little shampoo bottles and chucked it over her shoulder at the door. It couldn’t hit Silver Wolf, obviously, it was about the gesture. “That I’m trans, you jerkhead!” Firefly could hear her teammate inhale heavily, and could perfectly picture her face even when turned away. “What?”
“I don’t know how to break it to you.”
“What?” Again, but more forceful this time.
“Firefly. Look at me.” As instructed, she turned to face Silver Wolf. The hacker had her hands folded, and pressed up against her lips, brow furrowed. “I have a heads up display that tells me a bunch of shit when I first meet people. Plus the aforementioned wallhax.”
“You’ve known this whole time.”
“Kafka can read minds.”
Firefly felt her face flush bright red. Oh. Right. Obviously.
“Elio…I don’t know if he reads minds, but he knows everything there is to know about any of us.”
Also obviously.
“And Blade spent his mortal life in the most dysfunctional queer polycule the galaxy has ever seen. Absolutely superhuman ability to clock people.”
That was the breaking point. She began cry-laughing. “All of you knew?” She choked out the words whenever she had a chance.
“I assume so. But like…what difference does it make? Girl, I’ve seen you kill dozens of people, and tear buildings in half. Pretty sure that’s a lot more notable than being trans.”
Firefly tried her best to steady her breathing. “Well, when you put it that way…”
Silver Wolf walked over, and grabbed one of the towels, before bringing it to the shower door. Pointedly, she turned away, staring over at the far wall as if it had the most interesting thing written on it.
“The gesture is appreciated, but you don’t have to bother. Not at this point, I guess.”
“No.” Silver Wolf’s voice was unexpected firm. “If you don’t like me looking at you like this, I’m gonna respect that boundary. Deal with it.” Firefly smiled, and stood up, opening the door just a crack to grab the towel out of Silver Wolf’s hand. Carefully, she wrapped it around herself, and stepped of the shower. “Also, just as an FYI,” Silver Wolf said, pronouncing each letter, “if you ever do want to change your biology, I’m…practiced.”
Firefly looked at her teammate, who was staring so intensely at the far wall that it looked like her eyes were going to pop out. “Have you offered this to other people before?”
“One other person. And I’m…self taught.”
Ah.
“I appreciate the offer. The idea of someone altering my biology is horrifying to an almost indescribable degree, so I’m gonna pass though.” Then Firefly wrapped her arms around the shorter girl, and pulled her close in an unexpected hug.
Silver Wolf shrieked. “Still wet from shower, still wet from shower!”
“It’s just water, it’s not gonna hurt you.”
“Not true, I’m melting, I’m dying! You’re killing me! You must let me go!”
“Never!”
Their laughter filled the room, and Firefly’s chest swelled.
“You still need to watch me make those pulls though. And you’re gonna need to let me go for that.”
Things were going to be okay.