Chapter Text
Childhood meant intertwined hands and pink quilts. He remembers resting next to a feverish body, too hot to the touch and still shaking beneath the blanket.
He remembers willing his body to cool down and when it didn't work running upstairs to step into the cold winter, teeth chattering and fingers like icicles before running back inside and listening to her sigh in content when his cold skin met hers.
Childhood meant kissing cheeks and holding hands. He remembers sitting down next to her, listening to her sniffles because Mylo had teased her and took it too far again. Ekko knew how Powder ticked, he knew her mind like he knew the inner workings of his watch. So he waited (he's always waiting, waiting) until her shoulders heaved and she slumped into his side to hold her.
Childhood meant promises. He remembers chasing her across rocks, their legs carrying them across little rivulets and roofs until he collided with her and they sprawled across grass, laughing. They rolled around, giggling and kicking and Ekko had stared into her eyes and thought if this was his forever he couldn't be happier.
"I'm gonna marry you someday.", he had declared, sprung to his feet and tugged her up with him.
Powder had laughed, short hair sticking up from their tussle.
"Fissure folk don't marry, Ekko.", she had reminded him, swinging her arms around him in spite of her words.
"Well, we'll be the first ones then."
Childhood means loving her. He had pinched her side and she let go of him with a yelp, scowl painting her face violent but it disappeared at the sight of the plant that was thrusted into her face.
A glass flower, the only kind of blooming thing down there and even they had become rare.
"Do you not want to marry me?"
Powder had rolled her eyes, taken the flower from his hands and grasped his hand.
"Pa said he married Ma cause she's his best friend."
Ekko had looked affronted at her.
"Am I not your best friend?"
A small smile had painted her face gentle.
"You can marry me when we're older."
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He stands at the bridge and his childhood haunts him.
He stares and his promises claw at his skin.
He breathes and the world crashes down around him.
His shoulders bunch up, so tightly drawn until his anguish rolls off of him in waves and he falls to his knees.
"No, no, no. Wake up. Jinx, wake up.", he whispers, shaking her by her shoulders, her head lolling to the side. Her skin is ashen grey.
One of her braids has come half undone and blood is smeared across her face, collecting underneath her head.
"Powder.", he gasps, tears choking him and his dreams are ghosts dragging him down.
What little movement her body made, that had kept his hopes alive, dies and his eyes widen, pupils dilating as his hands hover over her.
"Pow, get up.", he chokes out. She's not getting up.
He's never been more grateful for Kell's first aid-training as he hears ribs crack and pushes his oxygen into her lungs.
"Powder, please. We- we haven't gotten married yet."
His childhood promises, his dreams and hopes are all at his backside, taunting him.
He feels like a little boy.
"You can't take her too. She's all I have left."
His words are more breath than syllables and he feels guilty for using air that he should force past her mouth.
He feels like a child.
"Ekko!"
The distant cries of his friends don't register in his ears, all he can do is cry, beg in his mind and push his weight onto her body.
"Wake up."
He smears his own mouth against hers again and for the first time he’s met resistance. He snaps back, stares at her until she hacks up nothing and gags.
She blearily blinks, unfocused eyes traipsing across the sky until they land on him.
"'ko.", she rasps, grimacing as she inhales and coughs up air again.
"I’m here. I’m here, I got you.", he jumbles out, words drowned out by his sobbing and he pulls at her until she’s resting on his lap like a child.
Her bangs are tickling his nose, her legs splayed out next to him and her shaking hand is curling into the sleeve of his jacket.
"Why’d you…"
She’s breathless, still trying to breathe through the smoke and her broken ribs.
Ekko buries his face in her hair, grasps her tighter.
"I haven’t married you yet.", he whispers, throat broken, heart shattered and hasitly fixed back up with glue.
The shouts of the Firelights are coming nearer, but he won’t get up. Couldn’t if he tried. He’s glued to this spot with her.
But the thump of a cane makes him lift his head and he’s met face to face with the monster.
The monster’s eye widens at the sight of the girl in his arms and he takes another step towards them.
Ekko’s snarl rips through him, a savagery he’s tried to bury so many times. The kind of violence he’d only resort to for her.
"What have you done?", the monster asks, voice all sleek and shocked.
"Get away from us.", Ekko says, tugging her closer, hiding her face away under his chin, baring his teeth.
"'ko.", she whispers again, voice slurring and hands weakly pawing at his jacket to get closer.
"Don’t touch her. Give her here.", the monster says, words contradicting each other in his every waking moment.
A free Zaun, he says. Crank up shimmer operations.
No more hurt, he says. Clean up the bodies
"Get away.", Ekko screams, shoving himself backwards with her, grappling with the ground as Silco steps nearer and nearer.
"That’s my daughter, you insolent child."
"She’s mine.", Ekko roars, a cub pretending to be a lion because when has he not been a child?
They’re just children.
The whirr of a hoverboard makes him close his eyes and he hears the impact.
When he opens them again he can barely make Silco out, holding his jaw and glaring daggers at him and Scar, who had crashed into him. But in the next moment Sevika was behind him, tugging him backwards until he follows and they disappear into the smoke.
Ekko shudders again, curls his frame over her and breathes.
There’s a hand on his shoulder and he bares his teeth, shrugs until it slips off and he can hold her tighter.
"Ekko?"
"Go away. Leave us alone.", he snaps, can’t get any closer to her and she’s already whimpering, in pain.
I broke her ribs., he realizes belatedly and dread rears its head and his eyes fill with guilt in the form of tears.
"I’m so sorry.", he whispers, plants his lips on her head and mumbles apologies into the roots of her hair like they’re a healing drought.
"Ekko, is that-?"
"Don’t touch her."
He’s so scared. She’s everything and everybody seems to hate her, use her, not love her.
He’s scared they’d take her.
"Okay, okay."
"What are we supposed to do?"
"We gotta get him away. I doubt Silco will stay away for long."
"But we can’t take her-"
"'t hurts."
Ekko wipes the bangs from her face and lets her sweat mingle with her tears.
"I know, Pow. It’s okay. I’m here."
His reassurance falls onto her like a pink quilt and she grimaces, face paling as she coughs up blood.
"'m dying.", she mumbles, hands shaking as she grabs onto the collar of his jacket.
"N-no. Pow, hey, no, you’re not. Look at me."
Her blue eyes slowly focus on him and he tries on a wobbly smile, the charade broken only by the tears streaming down his face.
"I’m not letting you die. We still gotta-"
"get married.", she finishes, eyes crinkling and he shudders, smiles a bit more.
"Yeah, exactly. So we’re not dying, you hear? Not today."
She sighs, tries to shuffle closer.
"M’kay."
He breathes her in once again before loosening his hold and wiping at his face. Grasping her thighs he stands up shakily, wobbling under the weight that wasn’t nearly as heavy as he wanted it to be.
"Boss-"
"Where are you going?"
"Safehouse.", he answers, shifting her in his arms and making his way through the allleys slowly, somehow not faltering and failing.
"We don’t have a safehouse.", Zeri, who he finally recognizes, says. Her hands are fluttering around, she always does this when she’s nervous.
He pushes his weight against a wall and groans in unison with the stone as it gives way.
"Oh my gods.", she mumbles and Ekko barely manages to lug the now dead weight in his arms onto the pile of blankets they had stored in the havens when they were kids.
There’s a pink quilt here and he trembles all over again.
Childhood, childhood, childhood.
"Since when have you known about this? Ekko?"
He huffs an annoyed breath as he arranges enough support underneath Jinx's head.
"When I was, like, four I think."
"And you didn’t think to mention it? Is that medical equipment? We could’ve used that!", Zeri shrieks and Ekko rips the bandages from her hands.
"Well it isn’t just mine, is it? It belonged to us. My brothers, my sister, Powder and I made these. In case something happened and we couldn’t get home."
The silence was thick. Ekko had never really talked about what happened before he founded the firelights.
"So, no. We couldn’t use it because maybe the others needed it."
He takes a pill between his teeth, crushes it up and pushes the powder into her mouth.
He remembers Mylo staring in disgust as Vander fed him pills that way when he got sick. Remembers doing it for Powder and Vi when Vander had to tend to the bar and Claggor joined to help and Mylo refused to, said it was disgusting.
Jinx gags at the taste and Ekko pinches her nose, closes her mouth to get her to swallow.
"I know, I’m sorry. Come on, you know I’m not as good at this as Vi, or Vander. Help me out here."
"Vander?!"
"Zeri! Either shut up or get out!", he cries, finally releasing his hold on Jinx.
"I’m sorry, but Ekko, what is this? You’ve been talking nonsense since we found you!"
"I had a life before you, before the Firelights. And I owe you an explanation about my past about as much as you owe me one of yours."
He puts the bowl, filled with water they had collected and canned years ago, down on the floor and uses an old shirt that one of them outgrew as a rag.
The blood on her faces comes away with every drag of the fabric, unveiling a pale face.
He makes sure to be fast but to be precise as he wraps her ribs, the bandage tight but not constricting.
Once he’s done he sits back on his haunches, passes a hand over his face.
"Go back to the tree. Do damage report on the bridge. And bring me disinfectant."
Zeri is spluttering, but Scar, who’s been silent the whole time, nods and tugs her to the door, closes it gently and Ekko sags into himself.
"You’re so stupid.", he whispers, gathers her hair, one braid still undone, undoes the other and lets it pile up on the floor.
He curls up next to her, watches as her chest rises and falls, sits back up again, can't seem to slow the blood in his veins.
He regrets not going back sooner, regrets thinking about not going at all and he wants to rip the flesh of all those who've done them wrong from their bones.
He dreams of making Piltover kneel, dreams of placing a wreath on her hair in front of them and kissing her eyelids.
He feels like a devotee, a priest to the only religion he's ever known, as he sits on his knees next to her and prays to Gods that he had left behind when he was a boy.
"She's everything. Please, don't take her."
Some god must have heard him because she whispers his name. Her eyes are unfocused as they look up at the ceiling, oh so blue.
"Jinx", he breathes out, reaches for her face and their eyes lock onto each other.
A wobbly smile slithers onto her lips like a snake and he half expects her to strike him down before he remembers he broke her bones.
Jinx inhales sharply, a shard of bone poking something inside her and she cries out.
He flinches, backtracks his movements and takes his hand back as if he'd burnt her.
An idea forms in his head, theories coming together in his mind and he shoots to his feet, grabs his jacket.
He's halfway to the door when she howls.
"Don't leave me!"
His heart roars at the injustice of it all and he falls to his knees again, a mortal at the altar of a goddess.
"I'm not. I'm coming back, I'm getting you medicine, okay? Pow I'm coming back, I promise.", he chokes out, grabs onto her hand and presses kisses to her knuckles as if to brand his vow into her skin.
"Don't go, Ekko, don't go-", she sobs and her body is heaving and she's screaming and crying, bones shifting when they should be resting.
"I'm coming back."
He turns and doesn't look back this time, despite the increasing volume of her screams. He'd never leave if he looks back again.
He shuts the door closed, stands in front of the stone for too long to listen to the wails that turn to sobs and sniffles.
He inhales dusted air, shrugs his hood up and walks towards the deep Underground.