Chapter Text
The first time it happens is really an accident, or so Catra says, anyway. Catra was always amazing with weapons, and while Adora was too, she’d let her guard down just a little too much around her friend.
They’re just practicing on faraway targets. Adora’s already hit all her marks, something Shadow Weaver had softly patted her head for when she finished, and now stands off to the side watching. Catra just needs one more, she’s already leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else in their group, but Adora can see she’s starting to lose it.
“You got this, Catra!” She calls encouragingly from the side. Catra’s ears twitch, her nose wrinkles, and she sends her a brief glare before returning to the task at hand. Adora thinks of offering to help her with her aim, if anything just to be close to her, to gently readjust her grip, shift her arms, and…
…huh. That’s a weird thought to have. Adora shrugs it off and resolves not to say anything, because at the end of the day it would just make Catra that much angrier.
“Ah, so close!” She shouts when Catra’s dart just nearly misses the target at the end of the range, slips out before she can think better of it. She sees Catra’s tail flick back and forth in apparent annoyance, and wonders if she shouldn’t just leave.
“You’re too tense, Catra, you need to adjust your grip to the way you were shown earlier,” Shadow Weaver suggests walking by, coming to a stop behind Catra. Her tail stops swishing, her ears go still. Adora bites her lip—that’s exactly what she’d been thinking and considering saying—but Catra never did like being told what to do.
She tries again…and again…and again…but she just can’t quite get that final mark, and to Adora’s horror, because she knows it will just set Catra off, their other team members begin to finish before her further down the range.
“Just—” Just ignore them Catra, is what she almost says, but a murderous glare aimed her way shuts her up real fast. Adora sighs and laments all the chores she and Catra still have to do, hoping she’s able to get it soon.
But she doesn’t, even though she’s fantastic with lots of other guns, maybe the dart one is just…something’s off about it, for her. When it starts to get dark, Adora moves closer and opens her mouth to say something, but Catra spins on her and cuts her off before she can even think of anything.
“I don’t fucking wanna hear it, okay Adora?! God, not all of us can be so goddamn fucking perfect all the time, not all of us can be a kiss-up to Shadow Weaver, because some of us actually have to fucking work, and try for things—SHIT—”
Adora missed the last few words, because there’s a horrible sharp pain in her chest that steals all her breath away, and all of the sudden she can’t seem to concentrate on anything except the dart that’s sticking out of sternum.
“—didn’t mean to I-I swear I thought the safety was on, I-I wasn’t paying attention—Adora—ADORA—!”
Adora wakes up in her bed, feeling very, very strange. She takes several deep breaths and blinks until her eyes go into focus. The room is dark, all the other beds empty. Her stomach rumbles, she realizes she’s starving, and begins to groan.
“…Adora?”
Adora peers with narrowed eyes at the figure that comes into view, Catra, looking down at her with something she can’t quite place. Adora tilts her head to the side and frowns right back.
“Catraaa…why…why do you have a…the—that mark on your…?” Why are words so hard? What’s the one for the thing with the eyes and nose and mouth on the front of your head?
Catra turns sharply away, tail snapping with her. “Training accident,” she says stiffly, reaching up to feel the area where Adora'd been looking. Catra’s eyes shift back to her with that same look from before, one of her fangs digging into her bottom lip.
“…I’m sorry…I—back at the range, I don’t know how but there was a real dart mixed in with all my blanks, and, I thought the safety was on but it wasn’t, and…and I shot you, and tranquilized you. I’m sorry.”
Adora blinks and tilts her head. She tries to process the information, but it doesn’t really compute. “Cool, so when’s dinner?”
Catra’s face twitches at that. She looks like she wants to say something, wants to say a lot of things, like she’s about to argue…but then she deflates like a balloon, falling back and curling up at the end of Adora’s bed.
“Missed it. My fault. Shadow Weaver said to bring you something though, it’s just over there, on the other side of—yeah.”
Adora sits up quickly and goes to get the disgusting looking gruel they’d decided to serve; beats an empty stomach (if marginally). She digs in while Catra sits and watches. At one point she looks up and asks if Catra had wanted to say something, looks like there’s something on her mind, but she shakes her head.
“No Adora. I’m glad you’re safe. I’m going to do chores now. You rest.” And then she leaps off Adora’s bed and sneaks out of the room, faster than she could follow. Adora’s hand falls to the plate, her brows beginning to furrow, wondering if there’s something she missed.