Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

FIVE MINUTES BEFORE

Tools lay scattered on the cyberdesk, and Chase’s fingers danced over the circuit board to a toaster. It had met an untimely demise by combination of a spider, poor aim, and Kaz’s blast of fire, and it should have been an easy fix, but there was one particularly disobedient wire that had dragged the project out. Chase blinked to focus, the scraps of an abandoned bowl of cereal he had half-entertained forgotten at the edge of his workspace. 

The evening passed him by, the watch at his wrist ticking into quieter hours, hinting louder and louder that he should pack away and pick it up in the morning. But he had summit fever; he almost got it. It was just this one little wire…

A flash snapped his attention to the hyperlift. His eyes adjusted to the depth of the rest of the room, flickering briefly back to his watch as the doors opened. It was a quarter after midnight - no one but him usually came down to Mission Command this late. But Douglas was visiting again, maybe he was checking the perimeter -

“Oh good, you’re still up!” Bree smiled her entrance, a steaming mug of something wafting towards him. His bionic senses twitched and caught camomile, “What’cha doing?”

“Toaster fix,” he shrugged, pulled his attention back to the wiring as she perched on a stool opposite him. She set the mug on the cyberdesk, and Chase watched out of his peripheral as it was pushed in his direction. “What’s that for?”

“You’ve been down here hours, thought you could use a tea.”

“Chamomile’s my favourite.”

“I know.”

And Chase snapped his gaze up to focus on Bree. Her chin perched steadily on the ball of one hand, the other drumming its fingers on the surface of the cyberdesk. Her teeth pressed over her bottom lip, eyes set coincidentally on the tools between them. His senses pinged, but his bionics weren’t activated at all: this was a well-developed sense of suspicion that came from growing up with a sister who had been roping you into schemes since she could walk. 

“What are you doing up?” he asked, carefully laying the circuit board and screwdriver back on the desk. “It’s getting pretty late.”

She shrugged, “Wasn’t tired, thought I’d keep you company.”

“Are you… okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” she nodded, pulsed her mouth into a calm smile.

“Do you want something?”

“No,” her smile found its way to her eyes, an innocent twinkle shined out. “Can’t I just take an interest in what you’re doing?”

His brain flipped through an immediate roster of 18 years of dismissal, teasing, and name-calling that proved her wrong, and he had half a mind to list examples. But she seemed normal, she seemed… almost genuine. So when she shuffled into a more settled position on the stool, Chase reached for the tea. “Okay then.”

“What’s that thingy?” she pointed, her bony finger getting in the way of his line of sight.

“A screwdriver,” he said slowly, guiding her arms away from the workspace; had she hit her head? “You know what a screwdriver is, Bree. You tried to stab me with one when you were 11.”

“Right, right. Cool,” she nodded eagerly, and by some miracle, stayed quiet. He chose peace, switched tools, and zoomed his bionic lens to magnify the circuit in front of him. Maybe he could just ignore her; soon enough, she’d get bored and slink off to bed.

“Hey, random question…” 

And Chase continued to never be wrong in his life. Right there. She always had a motive.

He closed his magnifier, looked up again to face her. “Yeah?”

“I was just thinking, our capsules,” she started, “They can take x-rays, can’t they? Like when Adam dislocated his shoulder that one time.”

“Sure,” he nodded, “Why?”

“No reason,” she shook her head, backed down, fingers twitching to curl around her sleeve as she leant forwards. “Do they,” she cleared her throat, “I don’t know, do any other scans?”

Chase stiffened. “Scans like what?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “Like MRI, CT, ultrasound.”

Every cell in Chase’s brain screamed suspicion; he narrowed his eyes, locking onto each individual, guilty twitch. “Why?” 

“Just curious!” her voice rose a little in defense, “I’m taking an interest in our capsules, that’s all.”

“Why do you need to know?”

“I don’t “need” to - ugh, Chase,” the stool scraped along the floor as she stood, “Forget it. Last time I try to spend time with you. Enjoy your nerd toys.”

“Wait -” But she paced back towards the hyperlift so fast Chase wasn’t sure she wasn’t using superspeed. “Hold it!” He swiped open the desk, scattered his fingers across a setting, and just as she got to the doors -

“Hyperlift Disabled.” 

Bree stopped. He heard her tongue hiss against her teeth; her feet shuffled themselves in a circle. She relented, turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Seriously? Don’t be a dork, open the door.” 

“Why do you want an MRI?” he asked; her gaze flickered away from him.

“I don’t.” 

“Whatever it is you want then,” he folded his arms, but his assessment suddenly caught the bags under her eyes, the hunch in her posture. He hadn’t seen her at many meals recently, come to think of it; had she been sleeping? 

But Bree wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t have any medical background at all. She would have had to have spent hours researching symptoms to come to the conclusion by herself that she needed a scan, and Bree hated research. Which meant someone had told her she needed one. 

“Who told you you needed a scan?”

“No one, Chase,” she huffed, “Enough with the third degree. Yes or no, can our capsules do it?”

“‘Course they can,” he scoffed, “Our capsules can do anything. Now which doctor have you seen? Someone general? Specialist?”

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not! Open the hyperlift.”

“No.”

“Chase -”

“Does Mr Davenport know?”

“No! Of course he doesn’t know! That’s the whole point! And if you tell him anything, you little rat, I will cut off your ears and feed them to Leo’s goldfish.”

He blinked, unfeeling; the insult washed over him in such a way, Bree tensed in reactive fury. Chase pushed off the cyberdesk, paced forwards to Bree watching him like a caged animal. 

“I don’t know if this is your first day in this family,” he said plainly, “But we keep things from our father, we don’t keep things from each other. So spill it, or I’ll tell.”

She sighed, eyes skyward. “You are seriously the worst…” and she ran her hands into her hair, pulling it back into a ponytail as she paced back towards the stool. “I just want to know.” She dropped into sitting, “I can’t go to a doctor, because we’re all on Mr Davenport’s insurance. He’ll get billed and he’ll find out, so I figured if I can disconnect the capsule and run a… diagnostic, no one would have to know.”

“Disconnect the capsule? Bree, you realise he’s got security alerts on everything. You disconnect anything from his server, we have exactly 5 minutes because I get a panicked call from him yelling down the phone.”

“5 minutes?” she raised an eyebrow, “So it’s possible. How long would a scan take?”

“Well… it depends on what you want it for,” he relented the information, leant back against the cyberdesk. “Which brings me back to why on earth you’re asking.” 

Bree’s gaze fell from his as he scanned her; her mouth pulsed open to croak out an explanation that never came.

“Bree,” he prompted, dropped his voice; she didn’t react. “Come on, it’s me. What’s going on?”

“Chase, I really can’t say, okay? Please, just this once, you don’t have to know everything.”

And he wanted to. He wanted to give her the moment, let her walk out of Mission Command, do what she needed to do, and never bring it up again. But the way she held her shoulders, closing herself in against the world; the specific angle of her mouth set in a hardened frown-line. He hadn’t seen her this troubled since she touched the Arcturion, hadn’t seen her this secretive since she’d smashed her own chip. Bree was one of the first people he had ever become an expert in, and right now, he wouldn’t consider himself a genius if he just let her walk.

“Are you in trouble?” he asked, “Hurt? Sick? Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Her head shook in twitchy pulses, her hands rising past her chin to hold her temples. “I can’t,” she swore, “I really, really can’t, Chase -”

“Why not?” he watched her chest rise in short breaths; his heart thrummed. “You’re starting to scare me.”

A huff spilled out of her at that, her lips twitching up until Chase realised she was trying to laugh. “God, I’m sorry,” she confessed, and all at once her voice wobbled into breaking. “I’m sorry Chase, that wasn’t how this was supposed to go. I was supposed to… damn you and your superintelligence. I’m sorry -”

“Hey, hey…” the trembling rose to a quiet sob; he darted round the cyberdesk. “Bree,” but he stopped beside her, hovered a hand. Statistically, hugs went over well in times of crisis, but he and Bree only ever really hugged when it was, like, life or death… this seemed more of a comforting moment, and he didn’t have any data to assist - it was usually Adam, or Leo, heck, even Mr Davenport. Maybe he could go wake Skylar…

“I really, really think you should tell me,” he pulled up another stool, perching beside her. Her sleeve dragged across her cheek. “Bree,” he begged, “If you tell me, I can fix it. That way, I can help. I promise -”

“You can’t fix it,” she breathed, shook her head again. “You’ll… you weren’t supposed to know. You’re going to think I’m stupid, you’re going to judge me.”

“Well, I always think you’re stupid, but that’s got nothing to do with you, that’s just my intelligence.”

Her head rolled towards him; she glared. “Nice.”

“But I’m totally not going to judge you!” he fixed, and when she raised an eyebrow, “Seriously. I’ll stay super quiet, I won’t move a muscle, I’ll stay totally neutral and then when you’ve finished speaking, then I’ll fix it.” He nodded; perfect solution. “So there.”

Bree hesitated, flicked her gaze back to the disabled hyperlift, the closed rock-walls to the tunnels. She let out another breath, “You promise?”

“Promise,” he reeled in the bait, dragged his finger over his chest. “Cross my heart, hope to eat a thousand power pellets.”

“Seriously, Chase, you cannot tell anyone. Not Adam, not anyone.”

“I won’t!”

“Swear it. Swear on your life.”

“I swear on my life and on all my inventions,” he nodded. When Bree finally softened her guard, he leant forwards. “You have my word.”

And she finally relented, bobbed her head, shuffled restlessly on her stool. Chase braced himself, listened, formatted his expression into complete neutrality. He pictured her confessing to murders - he could take her sobbing out locations where she’d buried a hundred bodies; he’d hide them easy. Or maybe she’d been caught, traced by the government for having superpowers; he’d fix that, there were twenty devices he could name off the top of his head.

But that wouldn’t explain why she needed a scan. Maybe it was her superpowers themselves. They’d given her a brain tumour and she needed surgery no doctor in the world had ever invented. That would be hard, but he was no stranger to a medical textbook - he could get an MD in a month if he really applied himself, six weeks if he wanted to be a surgeon, but he could do it. But he didn’t know why she wouldn’t want to tell Mr Davenport if she had -

“I think I’m pregnant.”

Chase’s bionics shortcircuited. He blinked; they rebooted with a processing speed that clicked slower than his pulse. Bree’s gaze found his, her wet eyes boring into him to catch him out; her fingers trembled. But he had promised not to react, so every ounce of ability he had, bionic or otherwise, channelled into not losing his jaw on the floor of Mission Command.

“Interesting,” he croaked. “Why… why - why do you think this?”

Bree shook her head, her face contorted in a pout. “Don’t wanna say,” she mumbled, “S’awkward.”

“Come on,” he stood, swallowed, marched straight to the cyberdesk. “You’ve got to help me help you here, Bree,” he pulled a calendar into the hover-space above the tools; a diagnostic app flagged open in his chip. “What makes you think you are? Have you been sick? When was your last period? Are your breasts tender?”

“Chase!” a horrified screech tumbled out of her. She jumped to her feet, swiped the calendar away like she was snuffing out a fire. “Don’t ever,” the gravity in her voice made him blink, “ever say breasts or tender ever again.”

“I was just trying to -”

“And if you ever again ask me about my period, I will hang you from the Daven-head by your ankles.”

He stopped moving, the pure murder in her eyes making him yield. “Fine,” his hands shot up, “Whatever, God you’re so dramatic.”

“Chase Davenport, do not test me.”

“I said whatever!” a hand ran down his face. Bree groaned, a silence dropped as they both worked hard not to look at each other.

“I don’t know for sure,” she admitted, shooting herself forwards into a pacing rhythm. Her hands switching sporadically between resting on her hips, crossing into her arms, and reaching through her hair. “I just… I’m late, okay, if you must know.” Chase grimaced, but made himself listen. It was for science. “Later than I would usually - ugh, this is so not anything I wanted to talk to you about. See, why did you have to go and be all nosy?” He didn’t grace that with a response, being nosy was practically a bionic ability; it was all he had. “And I’ve thrown up a couple times,” she continued, the quiver in her throat coming back as she looked up. “And I’m just… Chase, I’m really freaking out, and I just don’t know what to do.”

“Okay,” he breathed eventually, his own heart calming to a more logical pace. “Have you taken a test?”

“No!” she cried, “Because that’s not accurate and if it was negative I’d be suspicious and if it was positive I’d be suspicious and I can’t get a blood test because of the medical insurance so I can’t -”

“Okay!” he begged; she snuffed herself into quiet. “Okay, so that could mean a variety of things then. We don’t even, I mean…” he gestured, pandered, stopped speaking in desperate hope she might be able to read his mind rather than him asking her directly. “Who have you - I mean…” he cleared his throat, “The potential, uh, father?”

Her thumbnail found her teeth, “Don’t be mad.”

“Oh God,” he groaned, “Bree, if it’s Roman or Riker -”

“What?” her jaw fell, “Chase! I can’t believe you!”

“Is it?”

“Of course not!” Pure offense radiated off her, “I hate you, oh my God! No, it’s just Kaz.”

“Oh, well -” But in the same second his mouth began defending his first theory, Chase’s processing speed hit 100% capacity. He stopped, stared, replayed the last word. And all at once, his entire soul left his body. “I’m sorry… Kaz?!”

“Ssh!” she pressed forwards urgently, “No one knows! Come on, Chase,” she begged, “Don’t be such a nerd, that’s why I can’t tell Mr Davenport or Adam because Kaz will be murdered. You know he will!”

“Oh, what,” he scoffed, “And I can’t murder Kaz? I could totally murder Kaz.”

“Not my point.” Bree breathed, her head dropped in defeat, and she scrunched her fists into her eyes. “Look,” she tried, “I hate this, this has got super complicated super fast and this is the last thing I need. I don’t know what to do, Chase.” 

Her head came back up, and Chase saw exhaustion fall over her in a fresh wave. Shadows hung above her cheeks, chest heaving for energy that she couldn’t hold. He opened his mouth, but - 

“I don’t want a baby,” a knot left her throat in a heavy sob. He softened.

“Bree -”

“No, I can’t, I can’t do that, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to change, or - or move house or - oh God, Mr Davenport’s going to be so disappointed he’ll never look at me again, and - the team, Chase! And everyone’s going to freak out because I’m bionic and who knows what freak-show it’ll turn me into, and I know you think I’m some slut but we did use protection and I -”

“Woah, woah, woah,” his hands found her shoulders and squeezed, “Bree. Bree.  Breathe.” She stopped. watched him, and she followed the instruction like it was the only thing she knew how to do. “That’s it,” he nodded when he had the silence, caught her gaze, and asked again. “Just breathe. Follow my lead. In…” his lungs ballooned; she coughed, matched him with a shudder. “You got it… now out again.”

Her lips trembled when did, eyes shooting up as they glazed over. He tried to demonstrate a second time, but Bree barely got through another inhale before her attempts snapped in half.

“Chase…” his name came out broken; she gave up caging the rest of it in. “Chase, I can’t…”

And she fell into him. His arms came up just in time to catch a sob; he gaped as she trembled. “It’s okay,” he tried blindly, but tears soaked into his shoulder. He pressed a hand onto her back to regulate her breathing, “No one is judging you, no one is freaking out, and I definitely don’t think you’re a slut. Listen to me.” Her heartbeat pulled to a gentle rhythm, and Chase felt her hands claw at his back. He held her, “I got you,” he said, “Whatever happens, I’m right here.”

He kept one ear on her breath as she pulled back, lowering herself numbly onto a stool. Her cheeks stained red with hot emotion, eyes dull with complete unknown.

“We don’t know anything yet,” he offered, “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Right now, forget everyone else, forget Mr Davenport, forget the team, forget -” he grimaced, “Forget Kaz. All you’ve got to do right now is breathe.”

And she did. She nodded, closed her eyes, and focused. It came in strong, it came out gently.

He waited for the shaking to stop, and when the tears had dried, when the flush had faded from her cheeks, he stood.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” he crossed to unlock the cyberdesk; she kept her gaze on him unrelentingly. “Depending on how far along you are or are not, a foetal ultrasound won’t be 100% accurate. But I can run a hormonal frequency pathway identifier and cross reference that with microscoping imaging and we can know for sure in five minutes.”

Her eyebrows skyrocketed, “Five minutes? That’s all?” Chase nodded, “But I - I don’t want Mr Davenport to find out yet. Can we disconnect the capsule?”

Chase shrugged, “Not on purpose,” he admitted, and Bree’s face fell. “But,” his hands reached over, programmed a setting into the cyberdesk… “Accidents happen - right?”

“Huh?” 

His hand swiped left; a smash of ceramic later, lukewarm chamomile pooled across the blinking LEDs. The desk sparked; she recoiled. He found Bree’s gaze, a smirk spilling out of his mouth, “Oops.”

“Capsule: Bree Davenport. Disconnected.”

Bree rose to her feet, jaw slowly falling; her eyes flickered across her brother, arms tugging in across herself. “Did you seriously just do that?”

“Are you going to stand here debating or are you going to go superspeed into your capsule before Mr Davenport calls me?”

Her answer came in stunned laughter, “Chase, you are just…”

“Hey, clock’s ticking.”

The hyperlift snapped back online; Bree’s head pulsed towards it when the doors whooshed open. He watched her swallow, caught her eye when she turned back to him.

“Chase…” her hands bunched back into her sleeves.

“I know,” he said again, and when her eyes sunk wider, “You’ve got this. It’s just standing in your capsule, no big deal. You do it every day.”

“I don’t do this every day.”

“Yeah, and I’m not nice to you every day either, so lucky you, the stars aligned.” The shine in her eye turned warmer as she huffed; he stepped towards her. “Go upstairs, I’ll need five minutes to read the data, then come back down here and you’ll know. But either way,” he promised, “I got your back. Okay?”

He watched her force herself into agreement with another nod, turning toward the hyperlift like it was a veil to another world. He turned back to the cyberdesk, unlocking his access to load the microscoping scanning software and -

Arms snapped around his middle. He stiffened, paused, reached up to pat her hands.

“You’re a good brother.”

“Obviously,” he shrugged her off, shooed her away to the hyperlift, “Now go before I have to convince Mr Davenport that Douglas turned evil again and wiped our servers.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” she shook her head, and before she could say any more, blurred away into the lift. He watched her breathe, settle herself, and with a final nod: “See you in 5 minutes.”

“5 minutes…” he muttered. With a blink of technology, the wait began.

Chapter Text

FIVE MINUTES LATER

“Yeah, I know Mr Davenport…” when Bree stepped back into Mission Command, Chase had the phone to his ear. “I know,” he leant back against the cyberdesk, smiled a half-hearted greeting at her, and yawned through a lecture, “Yeah, got it, no liquids next to anything worth over half a million dollars. Uh-huh,” he groaned, hung his head back; amusement tugged at the corners of Bree’s mouth. “Uh-huh - yeah, okay, I got it! Go back to bed, you’ll wake your baby.”

Bree’s legs stopped moving. Icy static flooded her limbs and settled in her gut. The word pounded with every beat of her heart, and Chase must have caught himself the second after he said it, because his eyes bulged as he saw her. 

“Whatever, Mr Davenport, got to go. Bye!”

He tossed his phone onto the cyberdesk. A silence clattered into Mission Command.

“Poor choice of words,” he offered, twisting his fingers together as he grimaced, “My bad.”

“Well?” she pressed forwards beyond the numbness, her eyes darting over the cyberdesk to pinpoint an answer. A holographic screen shone up from the desk, spinning her silhouette above a loading screen as code flashed across the picture. “I don’t get it,” she demanded; her throat tightened. Binary and algorithms and words she didn’t know led her to absolutely nothing. “Chase, I don’t get it! God, even the store-bought junk is clear enough to say one line or two!”

“Have a little patience -”

“Patience?” he recoiled at the volume in her voice, “My life is about to flip on its head and you want me to, what? Count sheep?”

His mouth pulsed like a fish, “Technically, that’s for sleeping.” Her hand hit sharp against his arm. “Yeah, okay, I deserved that.”

She made to bite out against him again, but the second she opened her mouth, emotion clogged her throat on an inbreath. Chase watched her, eyes sinking into a gentle sympathy she hated. The pity bore into her; she shuddered.

She fisted her sleeve against her cheek, “Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m stupid, Chase - I hate it.”

“Sorry,” he blinked to reset himself; his arm lifted to pat her shoulder, then promptly sunk back to his side again without making contact. “I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re scared.” She scoffed, “But that’s pretty understandable given the circumstances!”

She darted her eyes away before heavy tears spilt over; her chest hurt from fluttering. They could go round in circles all night. 

“Just tell me, Chase. What's it say?”

“I… I can't tell yet,” his hand lifted to scratch his neck as he focused on the code. “It hasn't finished calibrating the data. It's going to take -” 

“Don't tell me,” she huffed, “Another five minutes?” 

He paused, scrunched his expression in an absence of argument, and nodded quietly when Bree sighed.

“I knew I should have just gone with the home tests.”

She moved her feet to distract her brain. All Bree knew was to move; when her mind raced, she ran faster. It had been a tried and tested method since she was five years old. Her vision tunnelled… If she blinked hard enough, maybe she could wake up from an awful dream and this wouldn't be happening. Maybe she would be shaken awake in her capsule in Mission Creek, rub sleep out of her eye with a grey pyjama sleeve and do two hours training with her brothers before her biggest worry was wearing pink or yellow boots to school. Maybe Mr Davenport would come through the old sliding door with a mission, maybe he would call her Princess with that twinkle in his eye she used to hate, but now that she had outgrown him, she realised it was something called love.

Her hands shook energy from her body. “How long has it been?”

“Uh,” Chase looked at his watch, “Fifteen seconds.”

“Dang it,” she hit the wall, sliding down the blue LEDs to thunk on her backside. Her knees pulled to her chest on instinct, but she was immediately hit with a boomerang concern that curling up was bad for a baby. Was it? That sounded stupid. Did she care? 

Bree’s legs slid out flat in defeat.

“So,” Chase’s voice shuffled towards her out of the corner of her eye. She registered half a blur crouch down into sitting; he mirrored her position against the wall. “Nice spot you have here.”

“You don't have to stay with me,” she leant her head back; cool steel calmed a headache. “It's, like, one in morning, you can go to bed.”

“Yeah, right,” he crossed his arms in a scoff, “I'm 4 minutes 30 seconds away from becoming an Uncle and I'm just going to go sleep that off.”

“Not funny, nerd.”

“I’m not trying to be.” She lulled her head to face him, only to be met with that same detested, prying sympathy. “I'm serious,” and she jolted gently with a bump to her shoulder. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“I know,” she admitted. An ache pulsed out with every pump of blood around her heart. 

“Plus,” Chase pulled a leg up, “I lied to Mr Davenport - I'm in way too deep to leave now.”

“You didn't have to. I would have worked something out.”

“Yeah, but the whole point of me is that you guys don't have to work anything out. I'm here, I know everything, use me.” She huffed a laugh, “And besides,” he shrugged, “I’m all for the occasional secret and shenanigan, it keeps me on my toes.”

“And here I was hoping that one day everything would just… peter out and be normal.”

Silence ticked over them; Bree had lost count how many or how few. Chase breathed beside her, and she found herself matching it to her own in gentle waves. Nausea floated over her in a fog.

“Chase,” she turned to face him, and this time when his eyes met hers, she didn't let herself pull back into her walls. “Chase, what if I am?”

An exhale left him as he thought, and Bree braced herself, exhaustion locking onto whatever he was about to say. If nothing else, Bree could rely on her human dictionary of a little brother to always have the right answer. 18 years of making fun of him, but the fizzing in her stomach cried out for her old mission leader to just tell her what to do.

“That's not something I decide,” he confessed; the weight in Bree’s chest panged heavier. “But,” she heard him come in quickly when she shut the world out through her eyelids, “Whatever you do decide, that's cool.”

One eye cracked open; she couldn't resist. “That's cool?” She demanded, “What part of this is cool? How are you so calm?”

“Well,” his legs dropped into a cross; he turned to face her. “Bree, just because I can't tell you what to do, doesn't mean I don't have solutions for every variable.”

Her lips twitched, “Yeah?”

“Sure. Test’s positive and you're having a baby? I'll start researching preschools tomorrow. Heck, I'll even build you a diaper changing robot! Or,” he shrugged again like it was no big deal, “Test’s positive and you decide not, I'll drive you to a clinic.”

“You drive?”

“Fine, I'll learn to geoleap. But whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “And, you know, if this comes back negative and it's all a false alarm, well… we'll put on a pot of coffee, watch TV and forget this ever happened.”

Her eyes drifted closed again to still her head from spinning against the wall. “Only if I have command over the remote. I'm not watching another documentary about pencils.”

“Please,” he huffed, “The choice is yours.”

And a groan tumbled out of her at the reminder.

Her focus fell to the imaging hovering above the cyberdesk. Blue light speckled from the hologram in a ray across the floor, dancing over the slippers at the end of her stretched out legs. She still didn't understand the coding flashing through the silhouette, and tuned out the scattered sound of compiling data with a deeper breath. Her eyes found Chase again, now fidgeting with a loose thread on his shirt; he didn't have his attention on the scan either. She wondered if he was ignoring it as much as she was.

“Do you think I'd be a good mom?” 

She didn’t expect her brain to spill the question into the room. Chase abandoned the thread to look up, his eyebrow rose like he was surprised at the question.

“I mean, I’m a freaking superhero, Chase,” her arms folded to hug her stomach. “I run into burning buildings and fire protonic alien energy out of my hands. I turn invisible for sport - can you imagine my vocal manipulation with a crying baby?” 

He did grimace at that, “Yikes.” But he untangled his limbs, settled back against the steel beside her, and said, “I don't think that's something you need to worry about.”

“Yeah right.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously how?”

“Because!” He huffed, and caught himself at his own volume. Energy left him in a quiet shrug. “Because,” he said again, “You've spent all your life practicing on me. No, come on,” and he pushed when she opened her mouth to argue, “Remember when we started at the academy and I couldn't teach my class? Or, remember every single round of Bionic Brother Toss you intervened in when it went too far?” 

Memories seeped in through flashes of colour, laughter and yelling herself hoarse at Adam whilst Chase nursed bruises. She breathed a little easier in nostalgia. “Bree, half of us growing up in Mission Creek was just you enforcing my bedtime after Davenport went upstairs and I snuck out of my capsule to code.” A laugh shot out of her. She flashed to an old image of fiddling with the keypad to his capsule when she was all of… 8, maybe?

“Didn’t I try to lock you in once?”

“Several times,” he sighed, “But I'll admit it was for my own good.”

“Well, you got cranky when you were tired!” She defended, “Not my fault I didn't want to be pouted at over breakfast. You always made me read you that book -” childhood rage fed into her muscle memory as she fought to pull the name from thin air. “What was it? The one with no pictures and too many words.”

“Nuclear Fission For Dummies,” he smiled, and when he caught her glare, she didn't look away. “See, that's my point,” he offered; his expression softened. “If that's the road you go down, you don't have to worry. And I'm the smartest man in the world, I know. Mr Davenport may have taught me skill, coding, all that stuff, and Adam may have taught me to fight. But you?” he shrugged, and Bree waited as he flushed a little, embarrassed. “You're the one who taught me love comes before logic. I'd be half the man I am without you, Bree. Really.”

Bree stared; sudden heat pricked at her eyes. “Aw, Chase…” but he blinked the moment away quickly, cleared his throat. 

“It's not that big a deal, it's just -” 

“You're such a softy,” she shook her head, and couldn't help but watch him as he shuffled awkwardly away from her with all the fondness in the world. “That's really not fair,” she felt something dart down her face, “I'm hormonal and emotional, you're hitting below the belt.”

“Well, we don't know that for sure, you could just be really lame.”

But Bree didn't rise to the bait, she let the moment hang. She sighed, relented, and found herself drifting to rest a head on his shoulder. 

“How long left?”

“2 minutes 48 seconds.”

And disdain for the entire coding platform that built his stupid scanner fired directly through her. “You have got to be kidding me.” Chase grimaced, and she slid all the way down to lay flat on the floor of Mission Command. “This is the worst.”

The ceiling stared back at her as she blinked. She had spent her life looking at basement ceilings, craving the ground above them, the adventure, the exploring. And now here she was, living on the opposite coast to Mission Creek and, yes, okay, she still lived with her brother… but her life was good! She loved Centium City, she loved the penthouse, and the freedom, and their mission suits! She loved being on TV, running at the speed of light. She loved saving people. 

“I don't want to have a baby right now,” she breathed. She wanted to go to skiing at Christmas, and she wanted to see Australia before her 21st birthday. 

She tried to picture a little face. All wrinkled, writhing, screaming… but with her nose, and the Davenport smirk, and a mop of muddy brown hair from the guy that only three weeks ago had kissed her for the first time by the firelight in the living room. 

“God, Kaz,” she pushed herself up into sitting when she remembered; her hands pressed further into her eyes. “What do I -”

“Don't get ahead of yourself,” Chase blocked her mind from tumbling into images of three different futures. His hands wrapped around her wrists, pulled them gently free of her face. “We don't have to make any plans yet.”

But Bree did think about kids. In her future, in the dreams she had once upon a time under that basement ceiling. She wanted a house, a partner, light and love and laughter. She imagined her own set of two boys and a girl, and a dog chasing a cat around the yard. The sun would set over the treehouse her husband had built, and she'd call them in for dinner to a recipe she'd only just learnt how to cook. They would have ice cream with sprinkles for dessert, and family barbecues on the Fourth of July with all their uncles being horrible examples but doting on them unrelentingly.

But that was before Bree fell in love with her bionics. Before she tasted the thrill of stopping injustice, of knowing she made people's lives better. She wasn't ready to give that up yet.

Bree had two dreams, and she didn't want one without living out the other to the fullest.

“Bree?”

Chase snapped her back from a fantasy. She blinked as she found herself back in Mission Command, the clicking AC, the blue hue… the hammering of her chest.

“Hm?”

His eyebrow raised, and she tried to fill the silence, but for the life of her she couldn't turn her fizzing chest into coherent words. She swallowed, but Chase didn't say anything to it, he just checked his watch and settled back against the wall.

“So Kaz, huh?” He offered; she felt heat rush to her cheeks. “When were you going to tell me about that little development?”

She croaked, “I know you're distracting me.”

“Is it working?” Her head thunked back against the wall; she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right about another thing. “So,” she felt the smug grin in Chase's voice without having to look, “Go on, dish. You have 1 minute 12 seconds.”

“It’s…” she chewed her lip, and all at once felt herself break out in a smile. “It just happened,” she admitted. “We were late off a mission one night - you remember the call out to Sherburn Park? The -”

“Ferris wheel rescue. Yeah, I remember.”

“Right!” Her mind flickered with the firelight in the living room, the distant cars below underscoring her shuffling feet along the carpet. It had been a long day, and her hand stung with the sharp slice she had won from a rogue screw in her scaling the ferris wheel. “He’d gotten his med kit out,” she told him. Kaz had insisted - she had tried explaining her capsule would heal it fine, that it was nothing she hadn’t had before, but he wouldn’t let her go to bed without a bandage.

Nah, I want it done right, he had said, Perfect needs perfect.

“I don’t think he meant to say it out loud,” she huffed, and Chase rolled his eyes. Bree was a romantic at heart, she knew it, he knew it. He also knew she had a thing for doctors. “And neither of us pulled away after he patched me up. His hands are… soft -”

“Ew,” Chase scrunched his face, waving frantically like a drowning sailor, “Enough, mercy, I’ve reached my limit. I know how the story ends, or we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“Party pooper,” she grumbled, and when she baited him into a furious glare, she smirked triumphantly at her win. 

But the cyberdesk beeped. 

Bree bolted into sitting; all stories-past snuffed from the room in an instant. She didn’t breathe.

“Chase…” she stood up, but couldn’t puppet herself forwards to the hologram. It didn’t say anything, just data - numbers. “Chase, does that mean -”

“Yeah,” he followed her to his feet, he was staring at it too. “Do you want to… maybe, look?”

But her head pulsed in a violent shake, chest ringing with thunderous heartbeats. “I can’t,” she gasped, “I can’t look. You look.”

“Me look? It’s your baby.”

“It’s your scanner!”

“Fine.”

Chase left her holding herself up against the wall. She watched him dock at the cyberdesk, and the seconds his eyes flickered over the imaging felt like five minutes two-hundred times over. 

She loved her dream, she wanted her dream. But not now… please not now. She wasn’t ready to branch out, she wasn’t ready to grow up, she just wasn’t ready.

“Chase?” she prompted; he wasn’t saying anything. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Was that bad? Was that him thinking? “Chase!”

“I’m reading the data! Hang on. Stop whining.” He squinted at the code, swiped something on the screen; her eyes pricked with dizzy anticipation…

And finally, he moved. His expression broke out in a smile.

“Negative,” he turned to her, nodded, closed the hologram. “It’s negative, Bree. There’s no baby. You’re not pregnant.”

She lost feeling in her legs, stumbled forwards onto a stool. Five minutes worth of breath tumbled out of her lungs.

“Thank God for that!”

“God? Pretty sure I’m the one to thank.” he mused, “Though… I am sort of a -”

“Shut up, Chase!” An incoherent spiral that she never had to use expelled itself in a deep groan. She propped herself up on the cyberdesk. “Are you sure?”

“Totally sure,” he folded his arms, “You want to see the data? It shows extremely high levels of stress, but definitely no baby.”

“Stress?” she blinked, all of this just from that? But nothing had changed, “What do I have to be that stressed about? I’m never late on my period. I have superspeed, for crying out loud, it’s a wonder it never comes early -”

“Ew! Bree.”

“Oh, come on,” she deadpanned, “We are way past that tonight, surely.”

He shook his head, instead turning to the tools he had discarded from his toaster. He packed a screwdriver, a wrench, loose wiring into a box. “I don’t think I have to explain to you that this stuff just happens sometimes. But just to hazard a guess,” he suggested, “Maybe you were stressed because you’ve apparently been hiding a relationship with a team member from your close friends and family for weeks?” 

He flicked his gaze up in interrogation; she didn’t grace him with a confirmation. “Maybe,” was all she submitted. He huffed, a grin slipping out. “Oh, what, do you want a medal?”

“Uh-huh,” he sighed, “And for Christmas this year, I also would really like some boundaries -”

“That is never going to happen, Chasey,” she slid off the stool, stretched her limbs. Another exhale later, and Bree had never felt calmer. “Now come on, I need a drink. You want to raid Mr Davenport’s vodka?”

Chase stopped moving, screwdriver suspended above the box. “Do you ever not break the rules?”

“You don’t want to know,” she grabbed his wrist, tugged, and they left mission command behind in a flash of the hyperlift. “Come on Chase, five minutes - what’s the harm?”

Chapter Text

FIVE MORE MINUTES

Donald Davenport had come running. At a much more reasonable hour, of course, and after being thoroughly talked down by Tasha when he tossed the first three pairs of underwear he could find into a duffel bag in the middle of the night. But by the time he had eventually landed in Centium City, Mission Command seemed… too clean.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his children. In fact, of the various groups of Davenports he had speckled across the country, he actually had the most faith in Bree and Chase. 

But that was the problem. At least with Adam and Leo, he had explosion trackers sewn into the cuffs of their mission suits; at least with Naomi, she was still unable to walk on her own two feet, so was detainable by way of swaddle. Bree and Chase were cunning, they were sneaky. 

So he had relented more or less against his will when he truly found nothing but spilt tea and a sparking capsule radial. It was exactly as Chase had described it, down to the millimetre of the splash zone. 

Now, he lay propped up against his headboard; he swiped a page in his book, desperate to summon fatigue through his jet lag. It was only supposed to be a flying visit, and he had his calming sun lamp, the soothing thrum of the city a hundred stories below. He had his memory foam mattress, thousand thread-count sheets - he was nestled in the turret to his riches.

But something was nagging at his mind. An instinct he couldn’t name kept him awake.

A knock sounded at his door before he could think.

“Come in,” he called, and was met with the gentle swoosh of the door against the carpet. His brows knotted when the culprit revealed herself; Bree’s hair hung loose at her shoulders, a sweater he could have sworn was his twenty years ago dangling off her. 

“Hey,” she hovered by the door, “You’re still awake.”

“So are you,” he lowered his book, “Is there a mission? I’ll grab my jacket -”

“No, no -” she held out her arms just as he lifted the sheets to stand. He retreated, surprised, but when he paused, she just shuffled from foot to foot. “Can I… can I come in?”

Ah. He knew that look, he knew the eyes of a spiralling mind, “Step into my office,” he sighed, left the book abandoned on the nightstand, and no sooner did he pat the mattress beside him, the door clicked shut and she made her way round the side of the bed. 

“What’s up, Princess?” He watched her crawl beneath the covers, chuckling as the image snapped to mind of a five-year-old, deeply afraid of bugs, pulling an identical move. “Let me guess, you’re probably not going to explain why Chase was pretending not to be hungover when I got here?”

Bree blinked, hesitated, and quickly scoffed offense in a tone she reserved for lies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she folded her arms, “Anyway, Adam did it.”

“Adam’s on the Island.”

“He’s sneaky,” she shrugged, settled beside him, propped up against a pillow. “You should watch that one, you know.”

“Uh-huh,” he let his daughter attempt to dig herself out of her hole. “You going to tell me what’s really going on, Bree?”

She didn’t answer him, just pulled her hands into the sleeves of the sweater - which was definitely his, it had a stain on the cuff from an experiment that almost burnt down his first lab. 

Bree had never been his easiest-to-read child. She’d kept diaries since she was 8, lived in a fantasy land inside her head for a lot of her early years; she was the first one to pull away as a teenager. And when she’d moved across the country, albeit at his plan, she’d clicked into adulthood quicker than Chase had. Now, they spent most days in opposite time zones; their moments came fewer and further between than they used to, moments where he saw flickers of the girl whose hair he used to have to stroke to make her fall asleep at night. 

“Mr Davenport,” her eyes fixed onto her lap, “Can I ask you something?” 

“Of course you can, honey.”

“Is it… hard? Being away from Tasha and Naomi when you visit?”

Donald blinked at the question, there was an exhaustion behind her eyes he couldn’t name. “No harder than being away from you and your brothers,” he answered honestly. Strands of hair fell down from behind her ears; he brushed them away to see her face. “Bree, are you alright? You seem a little off.”

“Yeah!” the front came immediately; she snapped her eyes up, smiling on an exhale. “I’m fine,” she promised. “I just… wondered, that’s all.”

But she was paler than he was used to seeing her, and those shadows she had under her eyes only came when she had nightmares, “Maybe I should check your capsule again in the morning,” he offered; if it hadn’t connected back to the servers properly, her bionics might not be regulating.

“No, it’s okay,” she settled; Davenport smiled as she drifted against his shoulder, “Chase checked it, it’s working fine.”

“You know,” a chuckle escaped him, “I think the last time you snuck into my bed was when you got mad at him for getting out of his capsule in the middle of the night to work in the lab.”

She groaned into his shoulder, “Stop, you’re so embarrassing.”

“No, you were cute!” he remembered, “All: ‘Mr Davenport, wake up right now! Chasey’s doing science and it’s sleep time!’” he sighed, “Your little pout.” and Bree made an incoherent noise of disgust, “You were so annoyed he wasn’t listening to you, you burst into tears on my pillow.”

“Yeah, well,” she grumbled; her hand curled around his arm. “He’s not so bad now.”

“Aside from when he’s destroying my multi-million dollar technology.”

“Yeah,” when she murmured agreement, he was sure he caught the glimmer of a smile, “Aside from then.”

And he wanted to leave her be, to stay in their moment. But her breathing seemed off; something tied her into her mind. “Bree, are you sure you’re oka -”

“Can I stay here tonight?” she sat up from his shoulder suddenly, huge, brown eyes boring into him. He felt like he’d timetravelled, like two pigtails would sink into view right before his eyes. 

“I don’t know, honey…” she was so tired, he could tell from the crack in her voice. He pushed loose hair away from her forehead, “You don’t look very well, you should really sleep in your capsule.”

“Please?” she waited, blinked, pout spilling from her mouth; Davenport swore to himself. Fifteen years on and he was no better.

“Five minutes,” he relented, and ignored her humming triumph as he picked up his book. She settled down beside him, and just as he found his page, “What are you reading?”

“Nuclear Fission for dummies.”

“Aw, man,” she whined. “Why does no one in this family read romance novels?”

“You could always go back to your capsule.”

“No,” she said quickly, “Five minutes is perfect.” And as she turned over and closed her eyes, Donald stayed up reading… but his spare hand drifted to run gently over her hair. 

Maybe he didn’t need these moments every day, not even every time he saw her. But Bree knew when to run toward her family. And when he didn't know what was fully on her mind, that was good enough for him.