Work Text:
Navigator
Being in a spy cell was arduous work.
Really, being a Tenno at /all/ was, but in Ivara's opinion, the two of you had it the hardest. Rather than action-filled, fast-paced deployments your average mission was hours spent creeping along hallways. Stalking high-ranking officers as they went from meeting to meeting to see what secrets they unknowingly let slip, carefully slipping in and out of data vaults, waiting possibly multiple sleep cycles for a target to wander into a secluded area where their sudden abduction wouldn't be noticed until your Liset was well out of range. Nor did it end after extraction- there were reports to write, impromptu meetings to hold, and decisions to be made that could have long-term consequences if you were /wrong/. A job for the patient, no doubt.
It would've been lonely too, if not for eachother. In the beginning, it certainly was.
Outside of business, she wanted little to do with you or anyone for that matter, your partnership starting as an assignment rather than choice. Never outright hostile, only acting as if you didn't exist if there was nothing job-related to be discussed, going so far as to cloak within your shared space if she needed to pass by- or during meetings, if she was not specifically called upon. Months of attempts at small talk and other small gestures meant to start a friendship fizzled, and soon after you were forced to settle for what you got- essentially radio silence.
It was your fifth sabotage mission.
A Grineer galleon had been harassing and outright destroying smaller, unaligned ships passing around Earth, and the Lotus wanted to send a message. The large security force present both internally and externally made the usual kill squad ill-advised, and so stealth duos were called upon. The plan was simple on paper- multiple frames would infiltrate and sabotage the multiple reactors present on the ship simultaneously, resulting in a ship-destroying failure cascade too catastrophic to be an accident, too sudden to allow interference- or a multitude of survivors. The guards around your assigned reactor had been dispatched, only minutes available to complete the synchronized destruction before the next crew came and discovered the corpses. Coolant was disposed of, and as other teams signaled their readiness and Grineer comms exploded into panic as the reactors overheated, a whisper flitted through your and Ivara's shared mental link...
"I don't think they're dressed for warm weather."
Delivered with the telepathic equivalent of a mumble and fizzling towards the end To most, that would've been mundane, but to you those were the first words she's spoken to you- and it was a joke, no less! The embarrassment radiating off of her told you that it had /probably/ sounded better in her head, but before she could take your stunned silence the wrong way, you tumbled out a response. Likely just as bad, but it had the desired effect, and even as she weaved around panicked Grinner trying to salvage the unsalvageable, relief seeped in from her side.
From that day, like a steadily breaking faucet, she talked more and more until it felt like she was /never/ quiet.
You probably knew more than any Tenno about the minimum and maximum fang lengths for Kavats and how they varied between species (Vulpaphyla led, while Adarza had the shortest), the shared space once only decorated by your personal attention taken over by beast-themed bobbles and trophies in a matter of weeks, some of it too aged to be recent. Did it get partially obtrusive to a mission? Sometimes, but a gentle reminder was all it took to focus her back in- even if she did keep quietly rambling animal facts to you as she guided an arrow behind a target's kneecaps. Mornings remained quiet- though these days it was because she exhausted her nights creating her own bestiary (or pilfering small items from nearby Tenno as a 'test of her skills', happenings you denied any knowledge of), leaving you with the opportunity of waking up almost every morning to find her coiled around a floof.
It had been around 8 months since that day- a year and a half in service to the system.
A string of exceptional performance from your team had earned you a reprieve, and you had agreed to spend camping out in the overgrown forests of Earth. Today, you'd spend daylight jumping through abandoned Grineer outposts, Ivara taking the trip as a chance to teach you how to walk on her wires "just in case you ever get tired of sitting in that stuffy chair all mission!" A few shots of her bow had the area webbed the area with strings of transluscent cyan, a tree likely older than you and a massive, rusted excavator half-buried in another catching the light as you worked. Going up was the easy part- the wire jumped for your feet and clung on, making it similar to walking up stairs minus the guardrails and with far less room to step, Rubico held cradled in your arms for added realism. Across was about the same, her padded hands gingerely pushing on your lower back as she crouch-walked you down the line, the thin wire meeting your feet as hard as any floor.
"See that post is stationary that's wiggling in the wind? It'd be really, /really/ easy to blow a hole through it, but we don't normally aim to kill targets, right? Try to aim for that notch, pretend it's their arm..."
She ticked through your mind, leaving you to brace the weapon with your frame as hers pressed into your back, the straps of her hood brushing against your shoulder as her cool cheek nudged against yours, modest chest squishing in as her arms wrapped around your waist. A bit /too/ snug you teased, her flustered rambling cut off by the crack of the weapon discharging, a chip of metal flying off the notch of the post. Void-blessed as you were you still weren't quite ready for the kickback, the vibration running up your hands and shaking them numb, sending the rifle tumbling to the grass below as her grip tightened. Radiating vindication.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Vaults were worked over for what salvagers missed, birds were observed (their leftover feathers looted for a 'surprise') and the forest walked, the crunch of leaves and her occasional fact breaking up the comfortable silence. As the sun began to dip so did your energy¹, the priority shifting to finding a place to wait out the night. And find one you /did/- an empty, shallow cave, the ground in front dipping low enough for water from a nearby river to pool, with an outlet to reconnect it to the main body that fell off into a waterfall further down. The result was a tree-covered, pond of crystal clear water filled with flowering pads of multicolored lilies, bordered by smooth stone and centered by a flat white ore glittering red. Ivara had gone off to spearfish in the river as you set the cave up with sleeping bags and a covering for the entrance. Figuring you'd try to sneak up on her, you'd slip off in the direction she vanished.
And stopped as you brushed the bush inside.
Standing on a stone in the center of the river, the translucent cyan ribbons flowing from her hips /just/ visible enough to give her an ethereal glow. The water had splashed up the darkened metal of her inner legs, causing her curves to gleam and drip, the water painted blue by her natural glow. You had a side view, just enough of her face visible for you to see the way her singular 'eye' lidded in concentration, spear held at her side as her free hand flexed in front of her. A Huntress in her element. Refined, regal...
Beautiful.
You hadn't said that out loud. You didn't need to.
She started as your train of thought finished, head snapping in your direction as her 'eye' widened, the "cheeks" of her skull flushing cyan. Now it was your turn to be flustered, crouched on the ground as you tried to find a way to rework that into a more platonic ʸᵉᵃʰ ʳⁱᵍʰᵗ way without taking it back entirely as she picked her way across the river back to you, fidgeting with the spear as she moved. You knew she was /embarrassed/, but surely not embarrassed enough to be -violent-, right? The butt of the spear was raised...
And promptly dropped to the dirt as she swooped down, her hood closing the two of you off from the outside world. Her hands find your cheeks. A hiss fills the air, and your thoughts are promptly flooded with the taste of Maprico (sweeter than usual) as synthetic, unreasonably soft 'lips' push to yours, followed by a tongue /far/ bigger than yours.
She didn't even think to share the fruit, the jerk.