Chapter Text
Lucia has been described as many things. Foolhardy, kind, a strategic prodigy crippled by her overempathy. However, back in high school when Mouse once had to describe her in one sentence, she said that “Lucia is self-sacrificial to the point of sainthood, even when there are other ways.” The comparison may have been part of the reason why she chose ‘Lucia’ as her name when she turned 18, although she would like to argue that her sacrifices are more necessary than Mouse knows - more than Avelyne, or anyone, ever will.
Being reminded of such a sacrifice is still not the greatest experience.
Lucia waits for the tea kettle to finish its incessant whistling and bubbling, desperately wishing for the old kettle back at The Mill. It's not like she could just go back and get it after the raid, after all. She wouldn't be surprised if it's in the FBI's possession by now.
It was a good kettle. Gabriel used it a lot.
The sudden mental image of Reville confiscating the kettle only so that he can have it for himself makes her giggle. Just as the kettle finally calms down, Raquel enters. Her steps are light, but not unnoticeable as Lucia knows they can be.
While she is glad that Raquel is comfortable around her, Lucia doesn't dare to refer to Raquel by her birth name for now, not even in the privacy of her own mind. Not that it matters, since she's wearing most of her Archangel uniform for a reason, so Raquel it is. It feels odd calling her ‘Raquel’ without the mask, but her soft hair is on display… Lucia isn't complaining.
Okay, it's not that much of a surprise, the lack of the mask or Raquel's appearance, but Lucia still can't help her hitched breath. She can feel Raquel's eyes briefly glance on the back of her head as she moves towards the counter, but it's easy to pretend that she just hadn't heard Raquel enter over the kettle. It's far from true, Lucia takes pride in the fact that she can hear the others come no matter what. But it is easier to let Raquel think that she finally got the upper hand than reveal that she was stunned by the others' beauty.
The woman in the black hoodie smiles to herself before their eyes met, likely assuming that she finally took Lucia by surprise for once. Meanwhile Lucia would like to state that, for the record, she was much too focused on memorizing the way Raquel’s eyes were almost sparkling under the light of the dimmed bulbs to even consider disputing it.
Raquel breaks eye contact and opens the fridge. It takes all of Lucia's willpower to not continue to stare at her. Instead, she forces herself to turn around and get a mug from the cupboard.
Really, you'd think Lucia would be used to it by now, she’s seen Raquel's face more times than she can count, but, somehow, she always feels a little more breathless seeing her.
She would’ve looked at her forever, if given the chance.
While she pours hot water into the mug, she sneaks a glance just to catch the slightest of brow lifts that only appears when Raquel is surprised, as she's peeking into the fridge. She probably saw the food Lucia made for her and Ga-... Gabriel. Gabriel, because he's just in the other room with his mask on, planning the next mission. Not his birth name, right now he's Gabriel.
Lucia looks away, focusing on her future tea instead. Just as she stops pouring the water, she feels Raquel's eyes on her, so she puts down the kettle and turns to face her.
Raquel is holding two containers, some lasagna ‘leftovers’ Lucia made last night. There are sticky notes on the top marking the recipients by their name, alias, whatever. The other woman looks confused, alternating between looking at the containers and the one who cooked the food in them. Lucia feels her cheeks heat up, but she explains. “You two haven't eaten all day. I know you're both busy, so I made dinner,” she signs before, perhaps too abruptly, turning around and busying herself with trying to open a stubborn packet of tea.
Too much, too much, too overly familiar, shouldn't have made them food. What was she thinking?! She almost rips the tea bag as she gets it out—
There's a sudden thud from behind her. She turns around to see Raquel putting back the containers. And, oh, she's smiling. Her eyes crinkle in that way they do when she is truly happy.
She looks beautiful in the low light.
Raquel gives a small nod, both an acknowledgement and a thanks, and Lucia feels her heart skip a beat and her cheeks heat, but she manages to smile back.
Pay no mind to the fact that the tea bag falls from her grip into the mug, that was clearly intentional.
“I can heat the food up and bring it over? If that's alright I mean,” she asks, again in sign language. Raquel looks a little stunned, but nods and picks up the energy drink she came here for. Caffeine heavy, obviously.
Having retrieved her drink, Raquel goes back to their makeshift meeting room. Yet, just as she's about to leave, Lucia makes an odd little noise, almost like a whine, and Raquel turns around to see how Lucia is fiddling with the pendant of her necklace while wearing a nervous look on her face.
“Are you... are you mad I told him?” she asks in a small voice. She would have signed, but she's unsure if her nervous expression could be hidden. At least she’s practised this line in her head since she told Gabriel about Raquel's feelings for him.
It's been some time since that night, but both Gabriel and Raquel look... happier. It's not obvious unless you know what to look for, but it's there in all those subtle ways love has changed them for the better.
As it always does.
They take breaks now, even if it's Gabriel being forcibly dragged away from his attempts at planning by Raquel so they can cuddle.
Gabriel's plans are sharper somehow, as if his head is clearer.
Raquel smiles more both under the mask and out of it, even when Gabriel isn't there.
But above all, it's as if a load has been taken off their shoulders. Like they can breathe a bit more freely again.
You have to know what to look for, but it's there. So no matter what Raquel says, Lucia doesn't regret telling him.
That doesn't mean that she won't hold her breath while waiting for a response.
Raquel looks at her, surprise evident on her face. Seconds which feel like hours tick by, Raquel’s eyes flicking between Lucia's face and the hand on the pendant. Eventually she shakes her head and Lucia breathes out. It feels good, not having Raquel hate her for it. As she feared she might. It’s irrational, but she was never able to squash that thought.
Raquel puts down her drink to sign something. “I should be thanking you.” She pauses, a little hesitant. “I would never have told him, and Gabriel would have been too dense to notice." They share a smile at that. Lucia even giggles. “So thank you.”
Lucia shakes her head, smiling. “I'm glad then,” she signs, “You two seem happy together.”
Raquel's eyes soften. “We are.”
They stand there for a while, then Lucia takes out the tea bag. The kettle is cheap and likely someone's old modification project because the water is still too hot to drink.
Raquel looks back at the hallway, a quick glance, but then she sits down on a kitchen stool. “My kitten really seems to like you.” Her face is playful as she signs it, she doesn't seem to be mad anymore. “Well, your kitten now. What did you name her?” She opens her drink and takes a sip.
Lucia blinks. She... it never occurred to her that Raquel might accept her stealing one of her cats, or at least never progressing further than a grudging one. But then again, that kitten is the only one that survived, as much as Lucia wishes she could change that, and it only survived because she walked away with it. “... L-J-U-S. Ljus. It means 'light' in Swedish.” She has to fingerspell Ljus' name letter by letter before the personal sign she gave it, but it's worth it for the grin on Raquel's face.
“Of course it's in Swedish, you and your Ramiel speak it constantly. Is it because of her eyes?” The words make Lucia smile, Ljus' eyes are a very striking yellow.
“Part of it. It's from my name. L-U-C-I-A means light. There's a bit more to it, but that's one of the reasons. I wanted her to be connected to me, even if only Kaz and I can pronounce her name correctly.” Kaz has a personal sign, the one for muscle along with the one for big. She likes to think she made good ones for everyone in her crew.
Raquel nods thoughtfully. “How do you pronounce it?” she asks, her signing almost languid in how they flow. “Can you say it for me?”
The question leaves her stunned, but Lucia complies. “... Ljus.”
Raquel nods again, this time with another smile. She's pretty when she smiles. “It's very pretty, her name. Your voice too.”
Lucia feels her cheeks heat as she's caught off-guard by the compliment. “I thought you preferred silence,” she tries to joke, but she feels her hands fumble as her brain reboots.
“Perhaps. But your voice is.” Raquel pauses with a thoughtful look. “Nice to listen to. It's not unpleasant to hear it.” There's another pause. “It sounds good to me. You often speak very softly. And melodic. But your voice sounds good even outside of that. Only Gabriel has a voice like that too, and you don't speak the same way.”
…
Oh.
The compliment. The implications of what Raquel said. Like Gabriel, someone Raquel has been in love with for a long time, Lucia has a voice Raquel wants to hear. Could...
No. No. Don't even think about it. Lucia feels her hand reach for her pendant again, trying to squash the false hopes.
Lucia feels Raquel's eyes on her, zoned in on her hands, as Raquel takes another sip. “Why do you do that?” Raquel asks. “Play with your necklace?”
Ah. First time anyone actually asks that. Well, apart from Mouse. “It's a way to get my emotions out when they are too much,” Lucia signs, “I just need to do something with my hands, anything. It helps me focus. Or maybe it's better to say it helps me calm down? Fiddling with it helps... I don't really know how to describe it.” It feels odd, having someone notice such a small habit of hers.
Raquel nods, apparently satisfied with the answer. “I almost never see you without it since Gabriel gave it to you,” she signs, almost thoughtlessly with her quick movements.
Lucia doesn't think Raquel really meant to imply something, but she still blushes from how close she came to the truth. “Yeah, I wear it almost everywhere I go.” Why wouldn't she? It's the only thing she kept from her first mission as an Archangel.
She lifts the pendant up a bit so she can look at it. The sapphire greets her back, looking as if it's shining in the low light. She smiles at it, it really is a beautiful necklace.
Even if the damned thing does hold a deeper meaning for Lucia.
Gently, Lucia smoothens the necklace such that it lies pressed against her skin. The weight of it feels grounding. Raquel stares at her, looking as if she wants to ask more, but shrugs and takes another sip of her drink.
Feeling thirsty, Lucia tests the side of the teacup. It's still scalding, she'll burn herself if she tries to drink it. What kind of kettle is that? No, really, did someone modify it so they could— yeah, that's probably it. This is the Archangels, she wouldn't be surprised if someone has used boiling water as an instrument of torture.
They stay like that for a while, enjoying the silence. Raquel finishes her energy drink and rises to throw it away, but Lucia takes it from her hands. “You can go,” she signs with one hand. “I'll come with the food soon.” Raquel gives a nod of acknowledgement and moves to leave. But, as she stands in the doorway she hesitates, just for a second before she looks back at Lucia with something in her eyes. Something soft and hesitant.
Not that it matters, though. Before Lucia can even register it, the expression on Raquel's face turns impassive and she marches back to the planning room, her steps more forceful than necessary.
Lucia makes a confused sound, standing there with the empty can in her hands. What was that? Well, she shrugs, she shouldn't dwell on it. Raquel can get like that sometimes. Lucia throws away the can in its proper place and goes to take out the containers of ‘leftovers’.
They take a while to heat in the shoddy microwave, since you’d have to really fiddle with the placement to get it to heat evenly. Before long, Lucia has two plates of heated lasagna on a tray. Not wanting to just wait around, she had prepared some vegetables for them as well beforehand. She lays the chopped cherry tomatoes by the side. Lucia goes through her mental checklist. Lasagna, sides, cutlery— oh! She spins around fast enough to get dizzy to open the fridge again, taking out the can of Mobster Energy she had hidden in the back behind the milk.
Humming as she closes the fridge door Lucia's eyes land on her cup of tea. She tests the side with her finger, humming happily to herself as it's finally cool enough to drink. Making a chirping sound, Lucia places the can on the tray, looking forward to finally drinking her tea.
There's still an empty spot on the tray, just big enough to get a drink for Gabriel. As demonstrated, the kettle will take far too long to make tea one could consider safe to drink. She turns around to get a glass from the cabinet instead. As she does so, she spots the cup of tea sitting there on the counter and stops in her tracks. She had been craving tea all day, but...
She looks back at the fridge, then back at the tea. Well, more like she stares at the offending cup of tea.
The cup, being inanimate, doesn't respond.
Lucia narrows her eyes at it. The tea continues to not respond.
Defeated, Lucia throws her head back with a sigh and gets the milk.
When she finally gets to the planning room, she is once again faced with her mortal enemy: A door. It's a little hard to knock when you are carrying a full tray, so Lucia bangs her foot against it. It's not the most elegant way to do it, but it works well enough. The pattern is a well used one, a way to acknowledge that it’s her without sending the others scrambling for their guns.
There is no danger here, but she still hears the rustling of the maps stop. “You can come in.”
“Okay, but could I get some help with the door?” she replies. There’s a confused noise, followed by the sounds of someone rising from a chair, footsteps, the door handle turning and...
Gabriel's beautiful blue eyes greet her. Oh, and the red smile of his mask too, if one has to be pedantic. Lucia smiles and holds up the tray just a little. “My hands are a bit full,” she explains sheepishly.
Gabriel looks down from her face, stops for just a second on her necklace, and then finally his eyes land on the tray. “You brought us food?” he asks with bewilderment.
Lucia grins as she nudges herself past him. “You two haven't eaten anything since yesterday, so I brought some leftovers.” Well, more like she cooked a whole lasagna this morning so she could pass it off as just something she had lying around, but Avelyne didn't complain over having some food for the week made in advance. She sets the tray down on an empty spot, away from the precious maps.
Raquel meets her eyes with an almost mischievous grin as Lucia tries her hardest to convey a whole sentence with just her facial expression. Raquel, obviously understanding Lucia's annoyance at her not telling Gabriel she was coming, merely shrugs. She glances over at the food, raising an eyebrow at Lucia when she spots the milk tea. The judgemental stare is short-lived however as Lucia hands her the can of Mobster Energy. Raquel accepts it with pure delight.
Gabriel, still standing in the doorway, finally seems to come back to his senses. “You... brought us food?” Never mind, looks like it'll take a little while longer. The two share a smile at Gabriel's confusion.
Lucia might not have been with them since the beginning, but the way she knows exactly what Raquel's expression is saying, or how she can tell you the exact thought process Gabriel is going through, it... feels good. It feels like when she knows just the right words to make Mouse smile after a hard day. Things like that, learning the most nonsensical and minuscule details, stuff she knows only because they let themselves be vulnerable around her.
But it's a dangerous thing to think too long about, because she'll never be able to share the ability to convey entire paragraphs with just her eyes like how Gabriel and Raquel do.
Just like now, where a subtle glance from Raquel makes Gabriel's stance relax just a tiny bit more as he closes the door and sits down again. “I, thank you, Lucia,” he says as she hands him the cutlery. Lucia feels the ends of her lips tugging up, and she allows it to turn into an actual smile.
Lucia places the milk tea in front of him, and the way she can see Gabriel’s mood brighten even with the mask on is enough to make her heart skip a beat again. Sure, she's made him milk tea more times than one could count, but seeing him happy because of something she did for him is a rare indulgence.
She touches the side of the cup out of habit, almost hissing from the residual heat. At least the milk cooled it down a little bit more.
“The tea's drinkable,” Lucia starts. “But I think we need a new kettle. The water was hot enough to burn in seconds when I first poured it. Don't tell me we put a tool for torture in the kitchen?” A pointed look makes Gabriel sputter in surprise, but he does meet her gaze.
The emotions of guilt, mixed with just the tiniest hint of amusement are tough to glean when you can only see his blue eyes, but it's all she needs to know exactly how and why the kettle ended up as it is. She just hopes her eye-roll conveys enough affectionate amusement. Because really, is she even surprised?
Raquel, unbothered, picks the second set of cutlery from Lucia's hands. They've made skin contact before, even though Lucia is very careful to not get wounded, but this time, it still creates sparks in Lucia’s mind when Raquel's hand grazes her fingertips. Lucia lets out an involuntary squeak. For once, Raquel actually managed to sneak up on her.
The sound makes Raquel pause, and when Lucia snaps her head around, she can see the bright, catlike grin on her face, satisfied from managing to take her by surprise twice in a row. Or, well, what she thinks is twice, anyway. Still, the grin is infectious, and Lucia can't help but smile back, and she must be imagining it, but she swears Raquel's smile gets even wider.
The absurdity of the situation hits her. She, a woman who's been honing her observational skills since before puberty, was taken by surprise because she couldn't look away from one of her crushes’ eyes. She can't fight it as little bubbles of laughter try to and force their way up, making her giggle even as she covers her mouth.
It must have been a tiring day, because she hears soft chuckling from behind her. She watches as Raquel and Gabriel lock eyes, and suddenly Gabriel is laughing. And that's the final straw, because Lucia starts laughing for real as well, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.
It feels amazing to laugh like this, free from the stress of being an Archangel. Just three people laughing about something that doesn’t make sense to anyone but them. Lucia feels the sensation of being stared at, but when she opens her eyes all she sees is Gabriel staring at Raquel with eyes softer than she's ever seen. And oh, she needed a reminder that they don't feel the same, but seeing Gabriel look at Raquel with so much love fills her with both sadness and joy.
She's happy for them, seeing how much they love each other makes her euphoric in a way she can't describe. But is it okay to be selfish and mourn that neither of them will look at her like she looks at them?
Maybe it is okay, but she needs to squash those feelings soon. She loves them. She loves them, so seeing them happy together needs to be enough.
She stops laughing and clears her throat. “I'm gonna go to bed, it's been a long night. I would suggest you finish up and do the same, you can always plan in the morning.” She glances over at Raquel who nods, promising to yet again make Gabriel actually go to bed… even if she has to drag him into it. Lucia gives her an appreciative smile and moves to leave, but a hand on her shoulder stops her.
“Wait.”
Her skin prickles in goosebumps at the touch, even with her long sleeves on. She looks at the white-gloved hand on her shoulder, then at that ever-smiling mask, then finally at those worried blue eyes. Wait, no, not worried, hesitant.
Gabriel just stares at her, like he's trying to figure her out. Silently, she prays that he won't. She's only got so many secrets left. Then, his expression changes to one of conflict, and Lucia can't even fathom why.
“I,” he starts. Lucia reaches for the pendant again and she sees how Gabriel's eyes flicker to it before returning to her face.
Lucia feels her breath hitch. “I…” She waits for him to continue, heartbeat drumming in her ears. He's so close, and his eyes are so blue...
“I— never mind,” he sighs before giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and dropping his hand. He turns around and sits back down by the maps, and Lucia catches the confusion written on Raquel's face.
What was that all about? First Raquel in the kitchen, now Gabriel. Lucia and Raquel exchange glances before Lucia shrugs.
“I, okay? If that's everything, I'm gonna head to bed. Good night.” She hears a muted sigh as she closes the door. A few seconds later, the door clicks shut.
Not knowing why, she lingers outside the door. Soon she hears shuffling, did Gabriel take off his mask? Then, the distinct sound of metal utensils knocking together, and after that the sound of purring. She hears Gabriel chuckle. “You like it?” he asks, then she hears the clink of a teacup being lifted, and Raquel answers with another bout of purring.
Lucia feels herself smile as she returns to the kitchen to pick up some things she forgot there. As she does she looks longingly at the kettle... should she? No, it's far too late, almost midnight even, and she really needs to go to sleep.
Sighing, Lucia leaves the kitchen and returns to her room. Ljus comes meowing to her and she crouches down to pet her before going to the bathroom. She's so tired…
Fighting to stay awake through her nightly routine, she almost falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillows. Thankfully she remembers to take off the necklace she always wears as Ljus jumps up on the pillow next to her. As she strokes the soft fur of her kitten, Lucia makes a mental note to make some tea for herself in the morning.
She falls asleep dreaming of white-gloved hands on her shoulders and eyes staring at her with something soft and hesitant. And even in the dream, she knows she'll feel guilty when she wakes up, but she’s already sacrificed so much. So, selfish as it is, she lets herself have her dreams at least for a little while longer.