Chapter Text
So. This starts with an Age change, because they’re so crazy young in the show. Takes place after season 2. Zack and Player are 25 and 23, Ivy and Jules are 27 and 28, Carmen is 27, Crackle is 29.
Chapter 0.1: ‘Tense’ means nothing if there is no softness, no deepening of friendship
When Carmen looks at Jules, there’s something fragile in the air, these days. Untested potential. Or, not untested—they’ve definitely been on a few ‘dates’, even if work ended up joining them on nearly every single one. (The few they got to keep to themselves made only the more tantalizingly dangerous by being on opposing teams—-near misses and near kisses alike.) But definitely unexplored.
There’s helping someone avoid the rest of your team with a costume change, and then there’s actually sitting down and enjoying a meal, or an entire shitty spy movie, together.
There’s never any need for Jules to say it. She is kind enough to keep the words unsaid. ‘Flowers aren’t enough, Carmen.’ No, they’re not. Even a full bouquet and re-stolen priceless art aren’t enough, though the smile they put on Jules’ face definitely feels enough for Carmen, at least in the moment. But flowers and thievery are all Carmen has to offer Jules, as things are. It’s too dangerous to be around her, let alone try and date her. Why is she always too much, too little, never enough? From her mom to her guardians to her friends to her more than friends, who she is has never been enough. Carmen Sandiego is barely enough, despite how she is the best parts of herself and the world stitched together, all to fit beneath a hat, a coat, a color, an ideal.
Case in point: Gray. Graham. Crackle. Take your pick.
Or maybe he’s just why. With Gray, thievery was enough. With Gray, flowers (and coffee, sure, why not) are enough. With Crackle...
She remembers their double friend-dates with Le Chèvre and El Topo before they got their heads on…not straight, and got together romantically, as well. They’ve had civilian dates, both on missions and off. They all agree cake tastes better stolen than bought, though, even if the wallet’s also stolen. They’ve held hands for a beat longer than needed before spinning to launch their specially chosen partner higher into the air than they could’ve alone.
Also as spies: they have cross-dated their entire class for a project. Navigating that many relationships simultaneously while maintaining class scores, own training, and own sense of self was crucial . Polyamory became pretty prevalent after that kind of experience. Le Chèvre and El Topo became old news, though no less disgustingly adorable for it.
Still. Carmen wouldn’t trade what she and Gray had for the world.
You would think they were joined at the hip. Her memories after he apologizes are all together: Gray and Black Sheep, laughing together; Crackle and Black Sheep having each other’s backs, literally and figuratively; sharing stolen fruit, tricks, treats, hiding spots. While she’d had time and size on her side, Crackle had electricity and electric-hacking on his. Together, they were unstoppable.
Carmen taught him how to get on the good ha side of the teachers; Gray de-escalated her conflicts with their cohort, took the fall for her riskier shit with even their teachers.
Gray lets himself be vulnerable, protective, worry and help another even at the cost of his own success and career. Only now that she’s further removed does she see how huge that was, how much he really cared about her did he really care if he was willing to kill her—
Black Sheep went against her family to be there for him, with him—having a third side that she didn’t mind choosing, more and more. Maybe that was her guardians’ first clue something was amiss with their little weapon. She learned to be more ambitious with him, instead of just a bag of tricks. She was willing to explain herself to and for him, when she hadn’t for anyone else.
They were each other’s protectors.
Until they weren’t. Until they couldn’t be.
The first almost-lie Crackle told her mirrored her first almost-lie to Gray: “I’ll see you there”.
The cracks began to propagate, and eventually they left each other, for other groups of people.
Carmen will always insist he left her first, left her all alone. Maybe, if Gray were still here, he’d say, ‘yeah, yeah—but you’re the one who went somewhere I couldn’t follow…nor anyone else. Literally all of V.I.L.E. has tried.’ His delivery with the fond exasperation at her antics would send them both into fits of giggles, and he’d move from playing with his hair to ruffling hers—
But.
’It’s Graham.’