Baba Yaga (allsystemsgo) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-09-04 12:35:00 |
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“Well I’m sure that a lot of people have felt like punching Alfa in the face at one time or another.” Ji Won made an exaggerated grimace as he uncapped the bottle of antiseptic and its rusty medical smell wafted up. “You’re just the one who actually did it.” His tone had been deliberately blithe, but he had made sure than any other agents - particularly Olivia - were well out of earshot before he said it. Wetting a cotton square, he began to carefully dab the antiseptic onto Erin’s raw knuckles. Nurse Jill he wasn’t, but if you were out in a situation where your teammates could get injured, you should at least know enough first aid to do damage control until you got them to an actual medic, was Ji Won thought on the matter. Erin snorted, some sentiment of amusement, but it was about as much humor as she could conjure. She hadn't intended on Ji Won finding her, expecting to remain at the range long enough that her teammates would've washed up and left. But there was always one straggler. Her pride was severely damaged. And it was one of the few things she had left. So she was going to stubbornly hold onto it as long as she could. "She got the best of me." Erin admitted. "I knew when I challenged her. On some level she already won." “It’s difficult not to let things get to you sometimes.” Ji Won reached for another cotton square, dabbed some fresh antiseptic onto it. “I mean, general ‘supes’ and ‘mutes’ remarks just glide off my back, but when it gets more personal - well, for me it was hard reading some of the things on the network after Paul was terminated.” Because Ji-Won was concentrating on Erin’s knuckles, he was able to speak off-handedly, as if he was discussing the weather. Erin shouldn’t have challenged Alfa to a sparring match (which was never going to be just that) but Alfa could have refused. Instead she had taken the opportunity to goad Erin further. “Kind of feels like it’s fresh all over. With the result of the inquiry, I mean.” It was difficult to open up. Prior to this weekend, the only way anyone knew about her past was if they'd been keeping tabs on Tanner's trial ten years ago. Other than that, she always kept her private life exactly so. Discussing it now, in any capacity, such as it had been with Rachel, was completely unnerving. But there were still similarities between this and what happened with Paul. Loss was loss, after all. And in that, perhaps, she could relate something to Ji Won's feelings. She missed Paul too, even if she never outright said so anymore. "Death is not a single event. It's a series." She muttered, eyes on the open gashes on her knuckles. "Hurdles, essentially, for those who remain. Death is just the gun firing at the start of the race." God, how stupidly poetic was that. "Do you feel like, in light of the news, that you wasted the last two months?" “Hurdles. Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.” You thought that you had finally turned a corner, only for something new to come up. Ji Won started on Erin’s other hand now. It wasn’t so much that he felt that he couldn’t talk about Paul - Ji Won having friends and confidantes in plenty - as that he didn’t know what to say. Erin though? Erin was more of a closed book. He didn’t expect agents to share every last detail of their lives with residents - he didn’t with them after all - but Erin seemed more closed off than most. “I kept on hoping that Paul was innocent and that X-Ray had just made an honest error,” he admitted with a softly expelled sigh. “That was the only scenario that let me keep my faith in both of them, I guess.” "It would've been nice." She admitted, clenching and unclenching her wrapped hand. But there was a tightness in her mouth that indicated she knew that hoping for that kind of outcome was ultimately foolish. Perhaps because on some level, she'd hoped for the same. "And now there's disappointment and betrayal stacked on loss. It's...typical, considering the past few months. You get used to it, though." “Life goes on,” Ji Won agreed. He recapped the antiseptic and reached into the first aid kit for the gauze. And Erin was right. He could see where this would just become another thing that made up the fabric of his life, like his first girlfriend and finally graduating from the OTP. That wasn’t the hardest thing to deal with. “Do you keep on trying to figure out just how responsible you were for it?” he asked after a moment. “Not him going rogue, I mean. But how much information you’ve given him over the years that he was feeding back to the same people we were trying to stop.” "You mean that we unwittingly assisted in the longevity and success of his career as a spy?" Erin shrugged. Blame was a tricky subject. She thought about Tanner and how, as his only sibling, she was the only one left who could support him after he killed their parents. The amount of work she'd put into it, the amount of blame she carried and still carried, because there was always something one could find. In that case, it was that she wasn't home when it happened, which was ridiculous and she objectively knew that, because it would've just meant she'd be dead too. "If not us, it would've been someone else." Erin finally answered. "In retrospect, we should've been more aware, but he was good at his job and personal attachment can be...blinding." “Yeah, but-” Ji Won trailed off. What Erin said made sense, but he wasn’t able to accept it. He concentrated on wrapping up Erin’s right hand, waiting for the words to assemble themselves into some kind of order in his head. “I feel like I should have been onto it more,” he added. “Like I trained with the guy, I lived with him. If anyone should have spotted it, it should have been me.” “Why would you have been looking for it in the first place?” She countered, but not rudely. It was a trap, one which she knew well and one Tim was already having a hell of a time climbing out of. If she could help keep Ji Won from falling too far down that rabbit hole, she’d try her damnedest. “Yes, APEX can infiltrate facilities, but how is it frequent enough to warrant constant suspicion of others? You had no reason to look for signs.” Erin sighed. “What I don’t get is… You and the others were the best team he could’ve ever hoped for, and the best friends he could’ve had, and he allegedly still chose to put all of you in a situation that could’ve ended your lives, or at least put you at the mercy of APEX, and you’re blaming yourselves.” Now was the stern part. “Don’t you dare carry a dead man’s crime. You don’t deserve that.” Ji Won nodded, allowing the words to sink in. They also brought to light something that he had suppressed up until now - he was angry. Angry at APEX, who were responsible for metas being seen as bogeymen by a large part of the country, but angrier still at Paul, whose betrayal was much more personal, and who - as Erin had said - had put them all at risk, himself included. “We’re seen as the weak link now,” he added. “Thanks to him, everyone’s watching us.” He threaded gauze around Erin’s other hand, lips narrowed, eyes darkened. “I’m tired of it.” There was something about the spark of fire in Ji Won’s eyes that made her think of her brother. Poor guy didn’t know how often he got compared to her only sibling. But it was eerily what she needed in that moment, something familiar in all of this chaos. “You should be.” She agreed. “But you know what, with their eyes on us, now’s the perfect time to prove them wrong.” Her fight with Alfa didn’t really back that cause, but she was going to be more careful now. “It’s going to hurt for a long time, but if that’s all we’re going to let it do, then they’re right: we’re weak.” “Exactly.” Ji Won nodded, his features taking on a more determined slant. “Exactly.” They had been a tight team before Stonewall had ripped them apart. They were a still solid unit now - spouse punching aside. Briefly he wondered if Stonewall had been the only snake in the grass, something he had been ruminating on lately. Zenith was many things, but he was not an idiot, and if you were hoping to infiltrate your enemy’s camp, it would be a stupid thing to put all your eggs into one basket. Still, now was not the time to bring that up to Lima, even though - intelligent woman that she was - she had likely been wondering the same thing herself. “Well, that’s you done,” he said, securing the wrapping. “I wonder if we can get some Hello Kitty themed gauze for this kit - that will really convince everyone else we’re bad-asses.” Erin cracked a smile. A rare quirk of the lips, but meaningful in it. “Cute but badass. The motto of the Blue Team. They have Hello Kitty guns, after all.” She flexed her hands. Sore and unfortunately of stunted use for the next several patrols, but she was grateful. “Thank you for...thanks,” Erin looked up from her knuckles to the young man in front of her. “I...I appreciate it.” Normally ‘good job’ would’ve been her go-to, as it was on the field, but it didn’t quite suit here. And now she had to go speak with Kellogg. “If you could keep this between us, I’d be grateful.” “Hello Kitty guns-” Ji Won’s face broke off from his grimace to latch onto what Erin said next. “Ah, no problem. Anytime.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and retrieved his own gym bag. “I’ll see you.” |