Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere in Nevada…

“Welcome to Burger Gil’s. How can I help you?” The voice blaring from the duct-tape covered speaker sounded as dead inside as a corn husk, which wasn’t unusual for a chain joint in the wasteland. These places usually paid the Nevadean minimum wage of two dimes and a thumb tack.

Sanford leaned over the wheel to look at the menu and pick what he wanted, today.

“I’ll have a hamburger and fries—no drink for me, and uh a double cheeseburger combo meal.”

“Anything else I can get for you, today?”

Sanford glanced at Deimos, who nodded impatiently from the passenger’s seat. The bulky grunt sighed and placed a hand on his face. “Can we get a Lil Gil’s meal, as well?”

“Girl toy or boy toy?”

Deimos gave Sanford a shrug, so he just said “Surprise them.”

A big ‘I-don’t-wanna-be-here’ sigh, and then, “Pull up to the second window, please.”

As Sanford roved around the building’s corner, Deimos leaned back in his chair.

“Animal,” Sanford teased.

“What?” Deimos raised a brow. “It’s not like I’m eating it all now. Just wait until after the mission. You’ll be starving and I’ll be eating like a king.”

“You wouldn’t even spare a single fry for the famished love of your life?” Sanford asked, his eyes growing big.

“Nope.” Deimos shook his head. “And puppy-dog eyes won’t change my mind, this time.”

Sanford smiled, and then looked over as the employee opened the window.

“24.99, please,” he droned.

“Here you go, bud.” Sanford passed him the money, making sure he had an extra couple bucks in his hand and trading it for the warm paper bag. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks.” His eyes didn’t even light up a little bit. He was too far gone. Rest in peace, wage slave.

As they pulled out, Deimos started digging through the bag, snagging some fries from his meal and chomping down on them with his shark-like teeth. Sanford chuckled and rolled his eyes as he set aside the Lil Gil’s meal.

“You know,” Sanford started, “someday you’re going to have to learn to share.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Deimos passed Sanford his burger and set the fries in the console. “But not today.”

Sanford was full, but not too full—exactly how he liked to be before a mission started. He could be limber and take a hit without being sick, but he was also energized.

He kicked the door to the car open and climbed out, Deimos sliding over the hood to follow him towards the smoking building in the distance. It was a power plant—one of the newer ones in the Agency Against Hank Wimbleton’s territory. Doc had intercepted a transmission or two about some conversion to a new power source—one that would allow the building to produce nuclear power. That would probably to double the Agency’s efficiency and extend their reach in the north. Hell, with that energy, they could power enough bases to reach the tip of Nevada. Strangely, though, the intercepted transmissions had been only lightly encrypted and written in a rather calm tone. It was almost like they were expecting this to fail—just doing it on the side. It was not the AAHW’s typical behavior around stuff like this. Hell, with how far reaching the consequences, Sanford should’ve been warned to watch out for interference from Christoff or the Auditor, himself. Ah well. For whatever reason, things should go off without a hitch, today… unless something went wrong, which something almost always did.

Be on guard. Burn the place to the ground. Get out quick.

The raid started off simple. C4 to one of the auxiliary exit doors made for a good entrance strategy. They didn’t have any reason to be quiet, today, as reinforcements would take a while to arrive. They could have the place cleaned out before then.

Shielded momentarily from view by the smoke and dust, Sanford pulled up his shotgun and slugged the first guy in his way while Deimos slid into the room, knocking down two agents and dispatching them with his pistol while they were prone. An engineer immediately came in with an SMG, but was met with Sanford’s hook, which snagged his arm and forced him to drop the weapon. He tried to grab the hook—probably in some state of shock, but Sanford reeled him in and finished him off with another slug. His body—sans his ribcage and some organs, flopped down on the floor like a sack of potatoes. Room cleared.

Next room. Give them no time to breathe.

Sanford marched on, Deimos running behind him, and the vicious cycle began. It would be about fifteen minutes before they found an actual plant worker. For some reason, this place was overrun with guards and agency thugs.

It was a mousy-looking guy—face covered in rough, gray stubble and thick glasses held together by an even thicker layer of masking tape. Probably not trained to withstand torture, but even if he is, he’s their best shot.

Sanford made sure to grab the back of his coat as he tried to run, taking out his heavy pistol and shooting the remaining two agents in the room. Deimos used a knife he’d picked up two rooms ago to slaughter the soldat aiming his own gun at Sanford.

The grunt in Sanford’s hands looked back at him, trembling, but he just smiled. “Alright, chucklehead,” he sneered. “Take a seat. I have some questions for you.”

Deimos, already knowing the drill by now, kicked the nearest chair. It skidded across the floor, stopping right where Sanford shoved the grunt. He sat down down with a whimper and then cringed as Sanford took out his hook. He used its sharp tip to force the grunt’s chin up, and then chuckled. “Don’t be shy. Just tell me where the shut off switch is in this place and it’ll all be over.”

As Deimos slunk around to the door, making sure no one intruded and keeping his gun to his chest, the grunt seemed to make a quick calculation. He was either thinking of how to get out of this alive or had already cracked and was scrambling to remember the information that would save his life—or what he thought would save his life. That was what Sanford thought, at least, before he blatantly stammered, “Y-You can’t turn off the power station.”

After a brief pause, and then a head shake, Sanford punched the guy hard. His knuckles left an impression on his captive’s face and the grunt squirmed into a defensive position. “You don’t have many more chances before this gets a lot worse for ya, bud.”

“I’m not lying! The—She…” A slip of the tongue.

Sanford pretended he hadn’t picked up on it.

“O-One of the kill switches for the main generators got destroyed. The—The power plant is long overdue for a cool down, but we can’t turn it off.”

“Destroyed?” Sanford raised a brow. That was far too ridiculous to be a lie—let alone a convincing one. A station unable to be turned off for even a moment? The whole building had to be a big cluster bomb, at this point… Was this some kind of trap? “What destroyed it?”

A pause—too long of a pause.

Sanford firmed up and grabbed the man by his shirt. “Spit it out! I don’t have all day!”

“We have company!” Deimos shouted before Sanford heard a quick exchange of gunfire. The bulky mercenary didn’t look away from his captive for a single moment, instead plunging his hook into his hip and giving it a twist. The grunt’s eyes widened, and he let out a strangled wail.

“Tell me!”

“It was a—”

Sanford heard Deimos shout something, heard a gun cock, and then whipped his body to the side. A trail of red arched through the air behind his hook as it was yanked out of the captive. Perhaps for just a moment, the grunt had felt a bit of relief, but it didn’t last. Two bullets planted themselves in him. They didn’t exit, but it wouldn’t matter. He was dead before his body hit the floor.

Sanford stared at the body for only a half-second to make sure it wasn’t moving before whipping around and throwing his hook. The moment it left his fingers, the soldat who had barged in finished recoiling from punching Deimos in the jaw. Sanford squinted one eye behind his shades as he watched the arc of the throw, and then yanked on the wire just before it could clip the door frame. The soldat’s throat was in the perfect alignment.

By the time Deimos stood up, Sanford was dropping the body. It wriggled once on the ground as its malicious S3LF clung to it, and then fell still.

Deimos managed to fire a few bullets through the door, and then sighed with relief. He grabbed his jaw and adjusted it, stretching and then wincing as Sanford put a hand to his chin.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, more pissed than hurt.” Deimos chuckled, shaking himself off and then asking, “Anything useful?”

“I think there’s something weird going on in this place. He mentioned a ‘she’ and insisted the power plant can’t be turned off—not even by them.”

“Oh, so new super-powered megabitch to fight. Great.” Deimos crossed his arms. “I’ll add her to the list.” He started walking ahead, but Sanford wasn’t fully convinced.

“Don’t you think we would’ve heard or seen her by now?”

“Not really. Even the dumb demon clown can be a little stealthy, sometimes. Heck, maybe she has a flare for the dramatic like Christoff. Maybe she’s waiting for us over a vat of green ooze that’ll turn us into toads or something.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” laughed Sanford as he shook his head. “Just… keep your guard up. Try not to get socked in the face, again.”

“Oh, well now I know you’re not getting any food later, buck-o!” Deimos shouted as he ran after him.

It had been nearly an hour. Reinforcements were going to arrive any minute, and who knew what kind of gear they’d have equipped? At this point, the Agency saw them as near equal threats to Hank. There wasn’t much they could do without causing critical damage to the facility, so why not go all out? Hell, if they really wanted, they could nuke the place with their supposed new energy source.

That was why Sanford considered aborting the moment they found the main control room. It was nearly empty, so taking out the few remaining guards was not the difficult part. What was unfortunate for them was that the grunt from before had been telling the truth.

The entire building was kept on by three switches. Assumedly they’d all have to be pulled down in order to turn the place off. Two were down, but the third one had been completely melted—literally fused to the floor like some jerk had taken a welder to it and just let all of the molten metal drip onto the tiles.

“What the fuck?” Deimos shouted the moment he saw the damage for himself. “Who the hell would do this? Why would someone do this?”

Sanford paused as he crouched down, and then tilted his head as something caught his eye. Next to the last switch, there was a hand print on the floor—No… Not on the floor…

He traced his fingers over the marks. They were embedded into the floor tiles.

In the floor.

Sanford paused as Deimos popped a squat down next to him. “Does this look like a grunt’s hand print to you?”

“It’s a bit small for that,” Deimos answered with a little shrug. “Unless it’s one of those elves from Slaughter Time.”

“There are no claws. It can’t be one of those.” The torturer stood up and shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Does anything in Nevada ever make sense when it’s new?” Deimos asked. A moment of awkward silence later, he continued, “Let’s just get going. This place is bound to blow up on its own, eventually, and something tells me we won’t have the venue to ourselves much longer.”

Sanford’s eye had caught something the moment he’d started to follow Deimos. It was an innocuous detail at first glance, but something was sitting on the corner of the desk closest to the switch: a little, black glove. Sanford took and unfolded it. It was the same size as the hand print; a perfect match.

He looked up, scanning the room, again, and then spotted another hand print pressed into a corner.

The hacker turned to him at the door, taking a puff of his freshly lit cigarette. “Sanford?” he asked.

“Deimos, let’s check one more thing before we go.”

“Uh… what’s that?”

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad idea.” Deimos said as he and Sanford trotted steadily down the stairway. It had taken a minute to find, but the sign on the door to these stairs had been very clear: Hazardous Waste Disposal. Sanford was sure in his gut that this was where they’d find what—or, more likely, who they were looking for.

When he didn’t respond, Deimos tried again, “Sanford? You’re scaring me, pal.”

“I just need to check something, man,” Sanford quickly fired back, “and then, if it’s nothing, we’ll go.”

“Ok, ok. No need to be snappy.” Deimos dropped the butt of his cigarette and didn’t bother stomping it out, leaving it smoldering on the cement floor. It probably had gone out by the time they reached the bottom of the stairwell and Sanford back-kicked the door open. After a quick sweep, they found themselves alone with a massive machine. It seemed new, as it was shiny with very few tarnishes to its metal exterior. Sanford looked it up and down, logging and analyzing each feature.

It had a porthole—assumedly where waste was pushed in—though it was surprisingly small, like they didn’t expect to be putting anything particularly large inside. To the left of the two mercenaries, there were two levers labeled “OPEN” and “EJECT,” and at the top of the porthole, Sanford was able to make out a radiation hazard symbol.

He stepped forward, and then narrowed his eyes. There was another hand print burned into the layered glass—multiple overlapping prints, actually. Some of them were almost slightly smeared. Someone had been smacking or pushing on the porthole, and it seemed to be from inside.

Oh, this was getting worse by the second…

“Deimos?” Sanford said as he took off his durag and brushed back his hair.

“Uh… Sandy?” Deimos never called him that on missions unless he was dying. “Please tell me you’re not about to do what I think you are.”

“I need you to stay out here and hold the door open. Do not let it close.”

“Sandy, the hell’s the matter with you?” Deimos exasperatedly waved a hand. “Do you realize what could happen to you—?”

“Someone is in there and needs our help.”

Sanford had been in many situations where someone needed his help, but this one… this one mattered to him more than when grown men were the ones dying. If what he thought was behind that door was, he wasn’t leaving without doing something about it.

“What do you mean?”

“Just trust me, ok?” Sanford looked back at Deimos, and then whispered, “Please, Dei.”

The smoker hesitated for a moment longer, and then nodded his head slowly. “Ok. You’ve lost your mind, but I support you, anyway.” Deimos walked over to the lever, and then pulled it down with a kerchunk! “Get in there, big boy,” he encouraged as the porthole squealed open.

“Thanks, Deimos.” Sanford smiled, and then, without a moment’s hesitation, squeezed his broad shoulders into the small hole and jimmied himself inside.

Sanford was lucky that he didn’t have claustrophobia. It was much smaller inside than he thought—at least vertically. He was able to crawl forward on his hands and knees, but just barely. He prayed to the Maker themselves that he wouldn’t get stuck. Horrible way to die, he had to imagine.

He didn’t have to ponder that scenario for very long, as his thoughts were soon interrupted by a soft, echoey sound. He slowed to a stop when it reached his ears, listening intently for a moment and trying to discern what it was. It almost sounded like… He shook himself.

“Hello?” Sanford called. As his voice reverberated against the metal walls of this strange prison, the other sound seemed to try to stifle itself. Now he was sure that what he was hearing was crying. His brows furrowed, and then he repeated, “Hello? Is somebody in here?” The silence that followed was chilling. He took as deep of a breath as he could before saying, “The porthole’s open. You can come out.”

“Who are you?” That tiny voice wasn’t nearly as far away as it had seemed, and it was accompanied by the sound of shoessqueaking against metal.

Sanford fell quiet, this time, but then forced himself to say, “A friend.”

He saw a slight glow for a moment, and then it suddenly snuffed itself out. Whoever he was talking to was getting nearer. He tried to lower himself a little bit, and smiled. “Can you come closer? It’s dark and cold in here,” he lied. It wasn’t cold. It was actually quite warm.

“I’m always cold,” muttered that voice, again. It almost soundedpout-y.

Sanford nearly snickered at that, but forced his voice to stay level. “Can I at least have the light, then?”

There was a long silence, and then finally, the light unveiled itself in the pitch black dark. It grew from from a hand—green and eerie in hue. A few moments later, it had crawled up from under an agency suit and even further than that until Sanford could make out the tiny features of a face. It was slightly hollow and starved but still ripe with a thin layer of baby fat.

A child. Sanford had been right… and deep down that pissed him off to no end, but he couldn’t show that, so he lowered his head to try and look less intimidating. “Thank you, kiddo.”

“Who are you?” the little girl repeated.

Sanford answered immediately. “I told you. I’m a friend.”

“I don’t know you.”

“But I’m here to help you get out of here.”

The body of the girl curled up a little bit, or at least as much as the tight corridor would allow, and she looked back down the tunnel. She seemed to be thinking, and then she looked back at him almost sadly.

“Don’t you wanna come back out? It’s scary in here, isn’t it?”

“They told me to stay.”

A pause, and then Sanford’s brows furrowed. He tried so hard to keep his voice steady as he said, “The Agents? The men in the suits?”

“Mhm.”

Bastards. Horrible men who Sanford was going to slaughter like pigs after this. The bulky grunt huffed, and then forced a smile. “Well, kiddo. How about you come out with me? I’m not an agent.”

Her eyes filled with terror—which Sanford expected, but he wasn’t going to get much farther if she still believed she had to stay in here.

“You… You’re a bad man, then.” She shrank.

A part of him was worried she’d run away. He tried not to panic, but lifted a hand, causing her to wince back. “I… I’m not. I know you’ve been taught to think that, but it’s not true… I used to work for them, but then I realized they were hurting people.”

“But…”

“My friends also realized that. There’s lots of us.”

She fell silent, and then her eyes slunk to the side. Once her muscles unclenched, Sanford knew he had a foot in the door.

“My name is Sanford,” he said. “What’s yours?”

Her eyes glazed over as she started listing numbers. “133—”

The SQ operative was quick to shut her down and shake his head. “Not your number. Your real name.”

She froze at that, and then lowered her head. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone what it is. It encour—causes… ind-iv-id… individi…” She tried a couple times to say something she’d clearly heard from a superior, and then looked back at him to replace the word she was caught on with: “bad stuff.”

Sanford smiled, endeared by her fumbling over her words, and then said, “I won’t tell on you.”

Something changed in her eyes, again, and this time it was good. They’d lit up. In an excited voice she whispered, “Bundtcake Marmalade,” like it was the best name in the world.

And you know what? It absolutely was.

“Bundtcake Marmalade?” Sanford repeated, his voice elated. “Oh, that’s a good one.”

She laughed, snorting a couple times between giggles, and then a low, rumbling gurgle filled the tunnel, echoing as the small one grabbed her stomach and hissed through her clenched teeth.

Panic rose in Sanford’s gut. He was quick to reach out for her as she craned in on herself, but the moment his hand got near her, a burning sensation spread from the tips of his fingers to his wrist. He flinched back, and then asked, “Are you hungry?” in a concerned tone.

“Y-Yes…” She nodded with a frown. “My stomach hurts so much. It’s been like that for a while.”

“Well, have you ever had a burger?”

That and a disarming smile was all it took to get her to perk back up. “I… no.”

“My buddy and I have one in our car; fries, too. I’m sure you’d like it.”

“But… I’m supposed to stay here.”

“I know, but the people who left you here aren’t feeding you, are they?”

She was quietly thinking, and Sanford let her for a few moments before getting anxious and promising “I won’t hurt you, Bundtcake Marmalade. I promise.”

The little girl stared at him, and then blinked. Sanford had witnessed that blink before back when he and Deimos had fallen for each other—the look of dissolution—of dissent. It was always like a spell being lifted, and he immediately knew what her answer would be.

“Ok. I’ll go with you, Mr. Sanford.”

Reinforcements had arrived and were skulking around the halls of the plant by the time Sanford and Deimos had properly regrouped. Sanford was glad. He needed to snuff some Agency lives after all he’d seen, today. Admittedly, the concept of retribution was probably alien to the little girl following behind them, but not to the torturer, himself, so he decided he’d perform it on her behalf.

The two mercenaries opened the door, drew their weapons, and fired, taking out a whole hallway in less than twelve seconds.

Once they’d reloaded, Sanford let the girl climb out from the stairs and cautiously took a hold of her arm. “This way, kiddo,” he said. She nodded through her new goggles.

The main issue with transporting her was not keeping her quiet, nor was it the speed of her walking, but instead the fact that neither of them could even touch her. Perhaps it should’ve been more apparent to Sanford that she was radioactive when he found her in a radioactive waste disposal, and—while she could turn it off a little bit—it just wasn’t safe to handle her without protection. At first, Sanford had argued that they should just put on the hazmat suits, but Deimos insisted that they weren’t going to get far with their vision and movement hampered, and so instead Bundtcake Marmalade was the one wearing the suit. That produced many more problems. It was way too big for her, so she had to waddle to reduce the chance of her falling on her face—emphasis on ‘reduce.’ She was taking a tumble about every minute… not to mention the um… debris that found its way into her path.

Yeah, she was tripping over corpses.

“Whoop!” she said as she fell. Deimos had just killed the agent who was now slumped against the wall, his legs twitching a little bit as she fell over them. “Sorry, sir!” she said as she got up.

Deimos looked back at Sanford, one eyebrow raised suspiciously. “She’s uh… taking all of this well,” he said, almost trying to sound like that was wholly a good thing.

Sanford knew better. “Agency probably desensitized her to death,” he replied as he blasted a slug into his next attacker.

The pipe on the wall clanged against the agent’s head and started shooting out steam as he fell to the floor.

Then, Bundtcake fell again behind them, and Sanford made a realization. He added hesitantly. “That or she can’t see anything.” He walked over to the child, helping her up and asking, “You ok?”

“Y-Yeah!” She nodded, the only part of her face exposed being her mouth. She didn’t need the oxygen tank, so they’d left it and the respirator off. “I uh… I’m a little lost.”

“Can you see?”

“I can see shapes and colors… kinda.”

Deimos had walked over, and Sanford looked up at him, shaking his head and guiding her along towards the next hallway. “Well, we’re almost there,” he said.

“Who’s gonna tell her?” Deimos asked around his new cigarette.

“No one,” Sanford answered immediately.

He wasn’t exactly sure if she knew about death at all, yet. Sure, it could’ve been in her programming, as she was a clone, but most clones were fully grown and programmed before they even left their cloners. Beyond that, they were typically hard-corrected to be male. Sure, there were exceptions such as intersex or anatomically-female grunts, but even then, they usually ended up being transmasc. Sanford questioned for a moment why this little girl was different. Something must’ve happened while she was developing or her genome was corrupted from the start. Did that extend to her programming? She did dissent pretty fast…

They turned a corner, and Sanford guided the girl behind him while pistol-whipping an engineer who was leading some kind of final charge. His mask came off, which allowed Sanford to finish him with a single bullet to the dome. Deimos mowed down the last three grunts, and they were practically home free—

“M-Mr. Sanford?” The little girl whimpered.

Sanford went rigid, and then turned around, crouching down to her level. “Yeah, kiddo? What’s up?”

“A-Are we going to be in the car for very long?”

Nodding, and then realizing she couldn’t see him nod, he answered, “Yeah. Is that a problem?”

She glanced behind him as Deimos walked by. “Um…” she started. “I um… I have to…” She poked two fingers together.

Sanford’s eyes softened, and he put a hand on her warm shoulder. “Hey, sweetie. It’s ok. What do you need to tell me?”

After one more moment of hesitation, she leaned forward and whispered, “I have to go,” into Sanford’s ear.

His eyes widened. “Oh.”

Sanford and Deimos were standing guard in front of the unisex restroom five minutes later, nothing but the distant rumble of the power generators and the idle humming of the girl echoing behind them. Sanford sighed as Deimos groaned to the ceiling, and then the smoker started to ask, “Why can’t she just—?”

“She can’t hold it, man.” Sanford snapped back. “She’s a kid. They have a bladder the size of a lima bean.”

“She could’ve just—”

The door to the stall creaked open loudly, and then there were footsteps. The girl called, “I’m done—” but Sanford knew better.

“Wash your hands,” he insisted.

After a brief pause, there were more footsteps, and then an automatic sink turned on. The humming started back up.

Deimos leaned towards Sanford and hissed, “She could’ve just gone on the drive. We could’ve pulled over.”

“Trust me, Dei. It’ll be best that she goes now.”

“What if—?”

The sink turned off and Bundtcake was putting her gloves back on when they looked down at her. “I melted the toilet,” she said with a tiny hint of shame in her voice.

Deimos shrugged. “Not our facility,” he said.

She continued to stare as Sanford took her little hand and added, “And also an inside thought,” while leading her away.

Sanford sat her in the back seat of the car they’d been lent for this mission and buckled her in twice. She kicked her feet and then perked up as he put the Lil Gil meal box in her lap. He opened it for her and took out the little bundle of paper, bread, and meat. “The burger is in the paper,” he instructed very carefully, adding, “Don’t eat the paper,” before pulling the hazmat suit’s mask off and taking it with him as she dug in. By the time he’d climbed out of the back seat, walked around the car, and clambered behind the wheel, Deimos had his arms crossed fussily.

“I resent this,” he said.

“Told ya you’d have to learn to share, someday.” Sanford winked, and then Deimos gave two, sarcastic laughs. The car took off towards the wasteland, and the bulky torturer took one more glance back at Bundtcake as she took a big bite of her burger. She beamed at him, and then he looked back towards the road with a confident smile.

Chapter Text

The first, most essential step of building a base in the wastelands of Nevada was the digging of the reliable zed trench. Believe it or not, the undead of the near endless stretches tended to be a bit of a hazard, their hungering, rotting bodies piling up at your front door overnight… or during the day. You had to sleep sometimes, and then you’d wake up overrun or to clammy, undead hands attempting to rip you to pieces. Even if you were to have one grunt stay up every other night to take out the encroachers, that wasn’t really the best for morale. In some ways, 2BDamned pitied the bandits that had nothing but tents, shottily-built fences, and raw numbers to protect them overnight—though he’d never say such a shameful thing out loud.

Either way, no matter what you did, zeds were a massive bullet-sink, but at least with a deep enough trench and a bit of barbed wire you could trap most of them and just deal with them in the mornings. It almost counted as enrichment—a morning exercise in killing. Sanford and Deimos would usually do it, but if Hank was particularly restless he’d get up and take care of it before anyone else woke up.

The problem with the zed trench though is that if you wanted it any longer than a year, you’d also need to maintain it, but that wasn’t at the top of Doc’s to-do list for this location. As far as he was concerned, this was an ideal building to house him and his top operatives for just long enough to get a few missions done—maybe knock out a few of the northern AAHW bases, but that came with added risks of being sniffed out…

2BDamned was shaken from his thoughts suddenly as Hank grunted and jerked backwards, the backs of his knees bumping against the side of the trench as he lifted his hand to his goggles. There was a barb sticking out of his thumb—probably having run through bone and all by the look of it. Having been supervising, 2BDamned blinked at him with exhausted eyes—though they were hidden behind his visor, and then he sighed as the mercenary began climbing out of the trench. “And that’s why I told you to wear gloves,” he groaned.

By the time Hank had reached him, the pale grunt’s finger had ballooned in a manner that would almost be comical if Doc wasn’t the one who had to fix it.

He took the mercenary’s hand firmly in his own, twisting his wrist around and then shaking his head. “Someone is getting a tetanus shot.”

Hank growled in response, his metal jaw grinding against what remained of the upper row of teeth behind his mask, but then something seemed to catch his attention. He looked up and over Doc’s head, and the man looked over his shoulder as he himself heard the squealing of metal dragging against dirt.

Oh sweet Maker…

Deimos was holding onto the console and door of the car for dear life as Sanford white-knuckled the wheel, the bulky mercenary sighing as Doc and Hank’s figures slowly became clearer. Doc had barely seen them yet and he was fully rigid. He was going to kill him for ruining another truck.

After he killed Sanford for bringing home a child, assumedly. The fact that that wasn’t entirely a joke, too… He could hypothetically kill him as many times as he wanted, bringing him back from the dead and such.

“So, uh…” Deimos looked over at Sanford, barely managing to nervous-smile, and then he let out a surprised squeak when the car lurched. The back right wheel had finally given out. Now they were dragging the entire body of the car across the ground using nothing but two wheels and a half-melted ring cap. Sanford sighed, covering his face with his hand as he laid on the breaks.

Yeah. They were dead meat.

Despite how hard he pressed the hood of the car was inches from Doc’s kneecaps when they ground to a complete stop.

Sanford looked at Deimos and muttered, “I’ll get Bundtcake. Turn up the charm.”

“Oh, as if I’m going to convince Doc to—”

Thud!

Doc’s gaze had not faltered—not even as he gave the nose of the car a firm kick. That was a warning, and Deimos and Sanford knew better than to test his patience by waiting any longer. Deimos opened the door to the car and, as Doc was distracted, Sanford started struggling to pry open his side.

“Hey Big D,” the smaller of the two said with a little two-finger salute and a charming grin, the latter of which was far too wide. “Zed trench looks like it’s coming along well.”

Sanford heard Doc begin to say “What. The fuck. Happened?” but quickly busied himself with pushing through the pain of being near the child in the back seat.

She had fallen asleep not long into the ride, and all had gone downhill after that. How much was she repressing her radioactivity before now?

He sacrificed a bit of comfort to shake her gently, which did seem to help a little bit. She didn’t quite wake up, but she was no longer boiling the air around her. Putting her mask on after that was only slightly painful, and then he was able to scoop her sleeping body up in his arms.

As he came back around the car, 2BDamned’s eyes momentarily flicked to him as he continued yelling at Deimos, “This is the third car you two idiots have wrecked in the… the last…” He turned towards Sanford fully and—even behind his mask—the burly grunt could see the confusion in his gaze.

“We uh… found something you might want to see,” Sanford started.

“Sanford, what the hell have you—”

“I’m not sure what’s going on with her but—”

Doc shook his head. “No.”

All Sanford could do was look down at the child and keep talking—as if his voice could overpower the drive in him to stop. “She’s malnourished and bruised, but—”

“Sanford, no.”

“Just—come on! Hear me out, Doc!”

“I will absolutely not hear you out! That… thing is not going anywhere near our base!”

Hank was eyeing the bundle of suit in Sanford’s arms with curiosity. “What is it?” he asked, taking a step forward before 2BDamned raised a hand. From behind even Hank, Deimos bit his lip like he knew where this was going, but he didn’t.

Sanford knew there was a way in. He just needed to find it. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” It was an emotional response, and he knew it, but it also silenced Doc. It wasn’t often Sanford showed that kind of desperation.

“Where did you get it?” It wasn’t quite a foot in the door, but it was something.

Sanford responded, “Some kind of disposal machine in the power plant.”

“Fucking hell…” Doc rolled his eyes, his striped mohawk flopping down on one side of his scalp. “You stole it from the Agency and everything—Ok, why is it in a hazmat suit? Is it an experiment?”

“I don’t know… I don’t think so. They wouldn’t have just thrown an experiment away—”

“Sanford, are you actually shitting me, right now?”

“It’s moving.” Hank reached a hand back and grabbed his sword wearily, causing Sanford to pull Bundtcake Marmalade’s body away from him as it stirred in his arms. After glaring at Hank, he looked down at her. Through the goggles, he saw one of her red eyes squint open.

“Mnh… Mr. Sanford?” she murmured. “What’s going on?”

He glanced up at Doc, and then tried to sound tough—he really did, but his voice was weaker than usual. It even trembled as he said, “We’re here, bud. You can uh… go back to sleep.” He glanced up at 2BDamned. “Mr. Doc is going to let us in.”

Doc’s eyes widened, and then he snarled through gritted teeth, “‘Mr. Sanford’ can take ‘Mr. Doc’s’ entire boot up his—”

“Mr. Doc better watch his language or he’s going to have an accident!” Sanford’s voice could not have been any tenser, and Doc looked genuinely taken off guard at the retort. Sanford didn’t blame him. He never talked back. He must’ve looked so desperate, and he knew that, but in that moment he’d do anything it took to get the poor kid inside.

Doc stared at him for a lot longer than was reassuring, but huffed and stepped off to the side.

Deimos’s eyes widened behind him. “Really?” he asked, gobstruck.

Sanford didn’t take his chances, he started hustling, only to feel a hand on his shoulder the moment the door to the base opened.

Under his breath, Doc growled, “Put her to bed, and then my office. Yesterday.”

Sanford looked at him for only long enough to nod, and then walked through the automatic door and into the bunker.

The walk to his and Deimos’s room was muscle memory by now. He didn’t remember anything until he’d put Bundtcake down on his bed and she reached up and took a hold of his arm. He froze, and then smiled as reassuringly as he could. The little girl seemed to read his expression, and she rolled over in his bed and grabbed the thin blanket without another protest.

When he turned back around, Deimos was standing behind him, his brows furrowed as he stared past Sanford and to the kid.

“Is uh… Is she…?”

“Make sure she doesn’t cook my bed to a crisp, ok?” Sanford said, putting a hand on Deimos’s shoulder as he passed him.

“Wait!” Deimos followed him to the door. “What if she asks for you or something? I don’t know if I can like… do this.”

Sanford wasn’t fully sure what he meant by ‘this,’ but nevertheless, he just said, “Crack a joke or something.” He started to turn back to the door, but then froze, adding, “A child-friendly one,” over his shoulder.

Deimos froze, and then sighed. “Yeah, ok… I guess I could do that.”

“It won’t take long for her to warm up to you. Trust me.”

Sanford patted Deimos’s shoulder, and Deimos muttered something under his breath as he left him behind. Sanford didn’t need to hear it. He knew that the circumstances were dire. He knew that, should he fail to convince Doc, their time with Bundtcake Marmalade would be short.

But he wasn’t going down without a fight.

The air in the office was so thick with tension that Sanford’s breaths were almost labored. He’d opened the door just seconds ago, walking up to Doc’s desk with a collected stride. The man with the mohawk hadn’t even been fidgeting with his computer before his approach. He was just staring firmly towards the door, not even acknowledging Hank. Hank, himself was standing with his arms passively at his sides. He didn’t need to stand a certain way to be intimidating, but whether he knew that was a mystery. From what Sanford knew about Hank, he didn’t put much effort into coming across any particular way. He was just Hank J. Wimbleton, and that was enough to scare most people.

Sanford had to keep a level head. Hank was there as a threat, but technically he was always a threat. Doc was the only thing that ever held him back from murdering anyone he pleased.

The clock on Doc’s desk ticked as another second passed.

In an attempt to distance himself from his emotions and at least sound impartial, Sanford analyzed the man like he was a stranger. 2BDamned: ruthless leader of Status Quo—SQ for short, as well as the main dispatcher. Despite his lack of agility due to chronic pain, he was able to hold his own in a fight, and that was because he prepped for everything. He’d probably prepped for this, so it was going to be an uphill battle…

Tick.

“I need you to understand before this conversation even starts that no amount of intimidation or bargaining is going to change my mind.” His voice wasn’t hostile, but Sanford knew better than to let that fool him into thinking he was anything less than furious. “You cannot keep that child here.”

Sanford had already waited too long to speak, but he couldn’t let Doc dominate the conversation. “The Agency won’t come looking for her. They’d effectively thrown her in the trash.”

“Sanford,” 2BDamned tilted his head to the side, almost as if from a sharp pain, and his eye twitched before he shook his head and relaxed a bit, “you are a merciless killing machine who’s tortured dozens—if not hundreds—of men in order to get where you are, to earn my respect.”

“Yes, sir. I have.”

“You’ve been one of my best operatives for the longest time. You’ve exceeded expectations in the field, and most importantly, I think you’re rather smart.”

“I see where this is going, sir, but—”

“Shut up.”

Sanford’s already firm lower jaw clenched taught.

2BDamned didn’t speak for another couple seconds, and then his eyes softened on command, either in order to feign sympathy or for some other purpose Sanford had yet to fathom. “Sanford,” he started, again, with the mercenary’s name, “I’ve known that you’ve had a soft spot in there. I never found out what it was for, but something always held you back just a little bit. If I’d wanted to fire you over that, I would’ve done so by now.”

Sanford’s brow twitched, and then his eyes flicked away.

“It’s children, isn’t it? Your weakness is children?”

“I can still kill, Doc.” Sanford pushed past the growing wad of thorns in his stomach. “I can kill, maim, burn. I can do whatever is asked of me without a second of remorse, but that kid needed my help!”

“Sure, she didn’t get in the way this time, but what if some day it’s her or Nevada?” and he shrugged as he said it, too.

At that moment Sanford saw red, but through clenched teeth he hissed, “I will keep her out of the way.”

“You know that I can’t rule it out.”

“So what do you suggest I do?” The burly grunt’s voice finally rose to his boss, and he walked up to the front of the desk. “Kill a little girl? Drop her off in the middle of Nowhere and just live with the?”

Doc’s eyes narrowed. “Do not act like I’m the one who put you in this position, Sanford! You did this to yourself!”

Sanford put one hand on the desk, leaned forward, and used his other hand to point an accusatory finger at Doc. “You—”

His hand was grabbed by another, and Sanford’s eyes widened. Hank usually didn’t move until Doc said so, but now the dark-cloaked mercenary was holding Sanford’s hand so tight he’d already lost the feeling in his fingertips. One firm twist or flick and his wrist would be shattered.

Doc was staring at him, waiting for him to back down. Anyone else would be dead for that kind of disrespect, which almost scared Sanford as much as it struck him with inspiration.

The mercenary sucked a breath in through his nose, his hand trembling in Hank’s grasp. “She stays,” he started, “until I find her somewhere safe.”

Doc crossed his arms. “I’m not negotiating with you.”

“It’s either that or I walk out of here and find her a home, myself.”

Doc didn’t react, and that was Sanford’s sign to keep going. He glanced at Hank, and then looked back to Doc far more sternly. “That could be months—years if I really take my time.”

Doc’s firmness gave way to confusion, and then he shook his head. “You wouldn’t do that,” he said.

“Call Hank off,” was the only response the dispatcher got.

That seemed to fluster him in a way. “If you walk out of here—”

“Call. Hank. Off.”

This was his last chance. Sanford was quickly losing his patience. He was being irrational. He knew it, but…

Doc sighed in a way Sanford had never heard him sigh before, and then he nodded to Hank.

The mercenary looked confused at that.

“Let go of him, dumbass,” Doc specified and, though Hank looked even more confused now, he obeyed.

Sanford clenched his newly regained hand into a fist, staring across the desk as he squeezed the feeling back into his blackened fingers.

After a brief quiet, Doc took in a slow, rattling breath. “Two weeks.”

Sanford stupidly retorted, “A month.”

“Two weeks.”

Silence.

“Two weeks.” Sanford left before he could change his mind.

He heard the snoring before he even opened the door, and stopped to listen to it for a bit. His eyes closed, and he stretched his shoulders before entering the room.

Deimos was in his bed, splayed out like a starfish and fast asleep. His jacket had been discarded on the floor, and Sanford immediately went on impulse to pick it up.

“He snores loud.”

Startled, Sanford looked up. Bundtcake Marmalade had her legs crossed on the bed, her eyes barely visible behind her goggles. They were groggy, but she had clearly been awake for a bit.

The mercenary smiled a little and chuckled. “Afraid you’re gonna have to get used to that, bud.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“With him.”

“Ok.” She looked down and started fidgeting with her oversized gloves, tugging on the fingers one by one and waving her hand to watch them flap lifelessly up and down.

Sanford’s eyes softened at the sight, and then he went to Deimos’s dresser. There were several extra t-shirts, both black and white, but Deimos only ever really wore one.

“Mr. Doc scares me.”

The burly grunt froze, and then his eyes closed as his head lowered. “Yeah,” he replied, “me too.”

“Why are you his friend?”

Damn, this kid asked good questions, and Sanford was honestly not really that willing to answer that one—not even to himself. Instead, he stood up straight and looked at Bundtcake with tired yet excited eyes. “You know what we forgot in the car?” he asked exaggeratedly.

She shook her head.

“Your toy from the Lil Gil’s meal!”

She didn’t return the excitement. Instead she asked, “What’s a toy, Mr. Sanford?”

“Oh, I’m about to change your da—ahem—ang life!”

Good save, Sanford. Good save.