Chapter Text
If Robert Joseph MacCready wasn’t such a fuck up, Lucy would still be alive.
A common thought to run through his mind these days, especially with the glint of a gold band on his left hand.
It's been months since Sole pushed the big red "Blow Up The Institute" button for the Minutemen and weeks since Sole got down on one knee. Mac's time on this earth feels split: Before Institute, with the majority of his time spent with Lucy in a damn cave, and After Institute, which will be spent with Sole, hopefully until he dies.
Mac supposes that it's only natural to feel a little bitter when a twenty-two-year chapter of your life comes to a fiery close with the push of a button.
MacCready, fully decked out in one of Sole's spare hazmat suits, kicks a rock and still feels the tingle of radiation through his toes. Ground zero of the Institute is still bad enough to make even ghouls a little uncomfortable. The tingle turns into a sharper burn and he scowls at the rock, firmly keeping his foot close just to spite it. His suit's Geiger counter has been ticking nonstop since they got within a mile of the blast, but now it's nearly frantic.
Currently, they're picking through the rubble of the former Institute looking for technology and scrap. Sole figured that a place as high-tech as the Institute would have had some sort of strong box with all the best stuff in it, while Mac doesn't think anything could survive a nuclear blast. Then again…
He looks over at Sole. Even with a filthy hazmat suit on, they still look...ethereal in this barren wasteland. Still perfect, even after a nuclear war and a 200-year stint as an icicle.
In a small way, they remind him of Lucy: his light in the darkness, a reliable force of good. But past that, the two could not be more different. How could you compare Lucy's healing hands to Sole's, soaked in red? Sole might look like they walked straight out of a prewar magazine, but Lucy…
Lucy was real. His late wife had been his only friend and confidant for years before things got romantic. Lucy helped him run a colony of kids in a cave, becoming a politician, a doctor, and a mother figure by the time she was 11. When she left Little Lamplight, it was on her own terms; she left almost a full year after RJ did, preferring to use her talents to heal where it was needed most.
After leaving the caves, Lucy didn't face the wasteland because she had to for revenge…she went out and healed people because she was brave.
In nearly every way, Lucy was Mac's opposite. There was no fighting the attraction between them. It was never work, it was never ugly, never bloody until the end, their love just…was.
And Mac didn't deserve any of it.
Hell, if he didn't deserve his childhood sweetheart, what makes him think he deserves Sole? The Savior of the Commonwealth title is a crown on their head, made of solid gold and encrusted with nuclear fallout. How they don't buckle under the weight is beyond him
Besides that, Sole is also accredited with other, much smaller good deeds such as Saving Local Fuck Up's Ass from Gunners and Curing Mercenary's Son from Deadly Disease.
Sole is a comic book hero brought to life, while MacCready is a sidekick at best or…
Or a villain at worst.
After all…if MacCready wasn't such a fuck up, Duncan wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place.
It was a clear day and he had begged Lucy to let him take their son while she worked at the clinic. Father and son played outside, soaking in the slightly-irradiated sunlight, smiling and laughing.
They were playing hide and seek when it happened. Duncan is as smart as his mother and knew his dad was letting him win. The little one was determined to beat his father fair and square. He walked a little further than the boundaries of the game.
"Ready or not, here I come!"
Duncan hid beneath a bramble bush in the mud, with small puddles and strange plants surrounding him.
"Oh Duncan, where are you?" RJ's sing-song voice calls out.
The bush was leaking some kind of fluid that drip-dripped every few seconds.
"Alright buddy, you win. Come on out, now."
Moments turned to minutes and RJ's anxiety spiked.
"Duncan?"
Duncan keeps a hand tight over his mouth to stifle his giggles.
"Duncan G. MacCready, that's enough!"
When it was clear to Duncan that his father was growing worried, Duncan laughed and wiggled out of his hiding spot.
The weeping thorns caught skin and Duncan cried out. RJ frantically ran towards the sound and found a bloody gash on his son's arm. Rocking his son back and forth, he soothed Duncan with lies.
"It's alright, Duncan. It's okay. You're going to be fine. Mom's going to fix you up, it's okay."
MacCready growls low in his throat. Teeth clenched, he shakes his head to clear it of negative thoughts. It was a mistake, one that could have cost him Duncan's life, but it was a mistake.
'He's safe now, probably riding on top of one of Daisy's brahmin. He'll be here within a month, then I can see for myself that he's okay,' MacCready thinks positively.
'The trouble we went through to get it…' Mac shakes his head and smirks, remembering the adventure. 'Cold leads, ferals, and an ancient security code. It was almost like a comic book. If we didn't need it for Duncan, we could've made a fortune-'
His thought stutters. That vial was worth his son's life, and while MacCready couldn't put a price on that, others could certainly try. Anyone who knows of the merc would know he'd pay it in a heartbeat.
'And if Duncan's not okay, someone will fucking answer for it.' His thoughts darken and his pulse spikes in anger once more.
As usual, when logic and diplomacy fails, MacCready is ready for violence. Actually, he's ready for violence before logic and diplomacy, too. He was always an angry kid, lashing out with curses to make up for his scrappy size, but a gun is the Great Equalizer.
Bullets don't care if you're 5'3" or 6'9", take one to the head and you go down just the same.
Lucy never liked killing, even the deadly irradiated creatures of the Capitol Wasteland. Murder was always left in RJ's capable hands.
"Each life is precious and short, especially out here," she would say. "We should try to let them live as long as they can." Meanwhile, RJ was going behind her back, killing people for caps.
But she was smart-smarter than himself, for sure-and even though he always skirted the question and lied about his occupation, there was no doubt in his mind that she knew.
'There's another difference,' MacCready thinks bitterly. 'I was always the liar between us.'
MacCready's heart speeds up, his palms sweat, his throat tightens and he's back. Back in time to three years ago, back in that damned metro station, back when-
Darkness everywhere, the lamp was snuffed out in the chaos. Damp, thick air like death and copper and fear. Groaning and shrieking behind him. Small hands clutching his jacket and smaller tears staining it. Blurred vision as he swivels around-where is she?-but all he hears is her screams and the wet sounds of flesh tearing. His brain tries to make sense of it but the terror won't let him.
It wasn't until days later after reliving the moment over and over again through night terrors that he understood her:
"Run, RJ! I'll be fine--It'll be okay! Just r-"
A scream, a wet gargle, an echoing thud.
Mac's hands clench painfully into fists, nails biting deep into his palms, drawing blood. In the end, it wasn't ferals that ruined his Lucy, it was him. He made her into a liar and for that, he'll never forgive himself.
But he should have gone back. He should have murdered every fucking feral he found and he should have brought her home.
If MacCready wasn't such an absolute fuck up, he would have dug her a grave in their backyard. He would have cleaned her up, wiped away blood and dirt and rags to dress her in the most beautiful dress he could find and-
If he had done this, he would have noticed the lack of a wedding band on her ruined fingers. He'd have seen metal in places where it shouldn't be: the glint of silver twisting from her open chest. The part that was a clear distinction between human and--