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Virgo is bored. Really bored. And in needing times like these, for a self proclaimed “probably retarded or something but don't wanna get tested to stay qualified for work”, everything and anything can be her personal little stim-toy. The interrogation room chair can be rocked, the cuffs banged against themselves, their locks picked with her hairpin, locked back, and picked again, over and over as many times as it takes, but none of it satiates the boredom. Patience is a virtue, and unfortunately for Virgo, she describes herself as the walking, breathing embodiment of vice.
It's been too long, maybe an hour or two, and the sound of her cuff's metal chain jerking against the table as the only thing to kill the silence starts to grow old. The blonde shifts in her chair, shakes her head, her best attempt at fixing the bangs of her short, androgynous hair while cuffed, and rubs the skin where her wristwatch usually is. Touching it usually helps her calm down, but this doesn't. They took all her things, was even stripped of her jacket, left with just the standard-issue white tank meant to fit captives like the ones she brings, only this one is uncomfortably baggy, giving just enough window to peek the void over her torso. Her absent eye aches in a familiar way, but the chains holding the cuff are just short enough to stop her from palming her eye patch, another soothing ritual she's been robbed from.
This room is for the losers. The guys that fucked up. Didn't go to rehab, didn't do parole, didn't play the game. It. Isn't. For. Her.
This is a mistake.
A misunderstanding.
And any second now she's gonna walk through that door and say there's been a mix-up. She's always there to save Virgo.
And like a prayer answered, Virgo hears a loud buzz and widens her single eye gleefully, it means door clearance. Then the big metal thud, and finally, she's there. Her angel, her saving grace, her H-
“Good evening Agent Ray. I am Operations & Logistics Manager Sergeant Alya Johnson and will be asking you some questions about this Saturday.”
Her fucking prosecutor.
Virgo's expression wilts, confusion turns to disbelief. It really was Handler. Complete with a milly suit and all the fun little colors at the chest that probably mean something, those thin secretary glasses, that murderous stare. Disbelief turns into disdain when the folder and microphone hit the table, the latter confirming this isn't some poor unfortunate joke or bad dream.
“Lee what the fu-” She tries to protest, putting her hands over the microphone before quickly having them slammed back at the table, yanked by the chain that she never saw Handler take. Both the camera and the privacy glass are facing Virgo, to the back of her superior. The words she mouths while sporting a murderous glare are for her eye and ears only.
Stay. Put.
Virgo feels the grip on the chains come slightly loose. Neatly stacked pictures come out of her file, and find their way onto the table. Alya's own way to fight for dominance.
“Handing subject Item number 2: Photograph of alleyway in Herald District, taken last Saturday. Do you recognize this place Agent Ray?” The first photo is handed. Handler is notably unhappy with the nonchalant reaction. The snarky stare and conceited smirk are weapons reserved to her opposition, sometimes, even her higher-ups, but never to Handler. However, Virgo is just as aware of the dynamics that little microphone brings as is her prosecutor.
Here, she isn't Handler, she isn't even Lee. She's OLM Sargent Johnson. And she's gonna have to work for her answer.
“Course’ I do. It was taken from my bodycam, after all.” Virgo leans back, rocking on her chair. Her boots hit the edge of the table, just barely missing the documents. She plans on enjoying this, and the disdain in Alya’s face is palpable, only fueling the fire.
“What about it, Ms. Johnson?” Her irony fills the room like a heavy gas, intoxicating, and impossible to ignore.
She tips the edge of her glasses. A nonverbal confirmation of the magnitude of her anger, one that sends Virgo over the moon.
“Tell me what happened that day, Agent.”
There's a pause, a static in the air. A conflicted Virgo almost forgets her very important game of mental-tug-of-war as the reminiscing gets her a little too into work-mode.
“...Well-
Saturday
0451 Hours
“You gotta trust me,” she cuts herself with her own smoking, putting away the cigarette at the shoulder of her heavy duty camo jacket, tossing the butt at the farthest trash bin. A quick fist pump for making the shot follows. She's stalling for time, and for courage, staring at the backdoor of some bar, wondering how much longer she's got. “Trust me this one time, Lee. I'm promise I-”
“Don't call me that on the clock.” Monotone as always, a pitch complemented by the hisses and muffles of the communicator implanted directly inside her left lobe hammers her drum. A price to pay to countermeasure someone potentially listening in the frequency, it's safer to send commands to control the device than actual audio. The bone conduction feels fuzzy for voices, but at least not as much as it does for codes, Virgo thinks to herself, coping best she can with the situation, salvaging anything positive, she'll need it for the job.
“You know, if you wanna be like that,” she checks her wristwatch. An analogue Casio she’s in a toxic relationship with, pawning it every other day, paying back with interest, only to take another loan later. “I'm only on the clock in 5 minutes.”
“Oh Virgo.”
Her eardrums shake violently.
.-.. ..- -. .... -. .-..
It burns. It's most excessive when she isn't expecting. Her body flares up, from the left ear all the way to the back of the spine, her eye twitching rhythmically, in synchrony with the cipher.
“You're on the clock when I say you are.”
There's no more quips, after this. No remarks, not to Her.
From that point onward there's only three people in this world. Virgo, Handler, and Tango.
In her leather bag, she finds her respirator, taking note of where it is, that'll out come last. Knives: one clipped on the waist, one chained to the neck, one in her boot. Three should be enough, the others stay. Knucks: already in the pocket of her camo jacket. She can't leave the house without her lucky charm. She shuffles more around the bag: flares, morphine, taser; too hardcore.
Just these will do. They're good weapons, just like her.
Her wristwatch sings. One beep. 0500 hours. She puts on her black respirator, relinquishing herself of what little humanity still lingered in her consciousness, and watches the door in the alleyway open.
“Tango spotted.” She murmurs to herself, with hands in her pockets and her back by the wall. Right across, a two-metered behemoth goes with black trash bags galore, maybe 4 or 5 in each arm, most leaking waste directly against her, all tossed inside the bin with a level of indifference you can only come to expect from decoms like her.
“Hey Tanya.” She says without diverting her look downwards, her squeaky voice smothered by the respirator. The behemoth stops, her back turned to Virgo. In a very nonchalant tone, and fittingly deep voice, she makes the first move.
“You gon' kill me?”
“Nu-uh missy. I'm here to take you home.”
“Bummer.”
The wheeled trashbin eats a roundhouse that would definitely kill your average human. It flies towards Virgo, who mostly dodges it, save for a rip in her right arm at the corner of the metal box. She'll need a new jacket after this, and a tetanus shot. That speed was absurd, she's definitely got prosthetics.
Quick to recompose and barely bleeding, Virgo gives chase to her already fleeing target, the two weave the alleys of the district, between cars, bins, fence gates and fire stairs, but Virgo did everything right this time. No failures. Lee- Handler put her neck on the line to bail her again. This time she's taking no chances. She promised, after all. Virgo studied all the maps and scans of these streets, and is quick to find her opportunity when a cornered beast, unfortunately less prepared, takes the wrong turn, backed up by a construction gate she can't climb or rip open for once, she faces her assailant, who's already gripping onto her knife, the dominant hand wearing the brass knuckles, slowly cornering her prey, her beast, her Tango.
“How the fuck do you sleep, fixer?” Tanya inquires with shocking sincerity in her words, and sighs before she can get an answer, slowly turning to face her. She's tall. Two meters or more. Her right arm is fully inked, it's half hidden under the sleeve of the greased, yellowed shirt she wore for whatever handyman shift she took at these clubs, but still mostly visible. All of them greek words, wolves, angel numbers and other stupid iconography common in those vet types. Pilots don't know modesty. Or maybe just don't know anything else. “Is making a living bounty-hunting decommissioned vets sitting right with you?”
Virgo puts her fits up, but it's hardly intimidating. Maybe that's the point. She's always telling Handler that looking weak is useful in the job. Her voice is strategically modulated to be as bratty, annoying, conceited and disrespectful as it can be, all part of the plan.
“Did the shit you pulled back in the day sit right with you?”
Tanya stretches. She seems well aware of her lack of options or exits, and already made a decision on what she'll do about it from the way she's warming up her arms. They're really big. All of her body seemed to be. Virgo quickly weighs the consequences of shooting her shot, but she knows how these end. And usually at her expense.
“It didn't, no.” Tanya took her time to answer, her fists come up to her chest level, one that seems to perfectly align with Virgo's head at that.
Pleasantries are over. It's time to go to work.
“Then ya should've seen your damn parole officer and therapist, decom.”
The answer is physical, not verbal, and Virgo narrowly dodges the first straight. It's fast, and another follows. She manages to slip in and shove her shoulder against the goliath's moving arm, knocking her balance for just a second. Good. Use her size against her. Don't take any chances, end it here. Jab her stomach with the knucks, stab her lower back. Non-lethal, not too much bleeding, no major organs, but debilitating.
Her hand moves on its own.
But no matter the quality of a gun, it will always have a chance to jam.
Virgo overshoots, having misjudged their size difference, and feels the punch's momentum stop at one of the goliath's ribs, probably breaking a finger in the process. The good news is a punch in there will cause much more pain, yes, and long-term? Even more damage. However at the moment, it's not gonna stop her, or make her feel dizzy like the intended target would've. But the plan must go on: her left hand aims for the goliath’s back, barely moving before it's too late. Her lack of peripheral vision blindsided the left hook to her stomach and Virgo's body betrays her for a moment as the lights go out.
Purple and yellow smudges dance over a black background, and then, she sees the sky. It's a beautiful celestial blue sunrise. The floor is so perfectly cold, she might just accept this. Her left side coils, her abdomen contracts, desperately looking for something to hurl away, but Virgo was one step ahead of her body and elected to not eat anything in the last fourteen hours for this very moment, so only a clear, viscous liquid is coughed out instead. And she wishes it could last forever.
But it doesn't last long. The sky is gone, and all there is Tango, towering over her, ever closer. She feels the weight on her stomach as Tanya mounts on top and god, it's crippling. Scrawny little Virgo looked at gyms the same way christians look at gay bars: sinful and unnatural, even if it produced weirdly attractive people whom she occasionally fucked in secret. So it was her personal policy to make up for that shortcoming with her “many other strengths”, and that her weak facade was in fact crucial for her line of work. She might actually have a point there most times, but at the current moment, it all conspires against her as she feels her body near snap and succumb under the pressure.
No giving up, no matter how good the asphalt feels. Plan B time. One knife fell. There's still one at the boot and one tied to her neck. She just needs to sneak any of them out. But as the first punch meets her torso, and she realizes Tanya slipped her brass knuckles out at some point to wear them herself, she questions Plan B’s feasibility while betrayed by yet another part of her arsenal. Her eye rolls up, a stream of drool runs over both sides of her mouth. She's unsure if she feels the prodding of a broken rib shuffle internally or if she's imagining it. Happened so many times that it's hard to tell at this point. A second hit, and a third, all around the perfect dartboard that is her chest area. Foam starts to form at the ends of her lips. Her groans go from erratic and guttural, to soft and gaspy, to nearly non-existent. The air in her lungs is too precious to throw away like that.
“What a fucking disgrace.” Her voice is equal parts disappointed and teasing, Virgo feels the behemoth’s hand travel from her chest, to her neck, to the back of her head. She props it up, grabbing what little hair she can. At least she won't be punched straight against the concrete, though this is hardly better. “And here my stupid self was hoping I could rile you enough so you justify lethal force in self defense to whatever government fuck put you up for this. But you didn't last a single fucking hit, did you? I didn't think it was possible but you're a disgrace even for fixer standards! Why the fuck are you in this business?!”
First punch, she goes for the cheek, and the respirator flies off, literally unmasking Virgo, her smirk, and all the things it probably means to her assaulter. There's a chipped tooth, a broken nose, blood gushes over the two of them. Then, one in her eye. The color around her iris changes to a clear, almost transparent hue. Then it's where the other eye should be, the patch comes off, showing all of her emptiness, and Virgo's streak of successfully taking it quietly finally ends. The scream that follows is soul crushing. Much more terror than pain. Tanya can't stop looking, and, in morbid curiosity she feels disgusted at herself for even having, leans closer to better inspect it. Weirdly, that intermission, and the act of looking eye-to-[ ] seems to somehow calm both of them.
“It doesn't even pay that well…”
She sounds truly divided. A somber, partially pitiful look paints over Tanya's face.
“It doesn't even pay that well, so why the fuck do it?” The weight on Virgo’s hips lowers, and she makes sure to not waste the chance. Keep her talking. She smiles, it's a heavenly sight. She knows how good she looks when covered in her own blood.
“Don't know how to do anything else.”
Tanya scoffs, sucking her teeth and murmuring. “You barely know how to do this either.” Virgo's head is let go, a soft thud echoes in the alleyway when her head hits the pavement.
“Besides, you can change. I did. Being a civvie ain't that hard.”
“But I don't want to be a civilian Tanya,” she closes her eye and breathes in, trying to ignore the suffocating smell of iron she feels. “I love my job.”
Another stabbing motion, plunging the knife towards Tango’s back. This time it's inelegant. The sitting position Tanya's in makes it so Virgo couldn't have fully concealed her attack, only the beginning of it was. And only the beginning of it passed unscathed. Inches away from hitting her thigh, Virgo's wrist is stolen.
Control no longer belongs to her, only to Tanya.
To Tango. The second most important person in the world.
“You fucking sewer animal.”
“Oh no… Plan B failed.” The fake dread, laced in poisonous sarcasm, is the last tip off to Tanya. She finally gets the question to her answer.
“Whore.” She spits down, genuine disgust creeps into her face as the drool hits Virgo's hollow eye and she catches a hint of a smile from it. “I’ll make your fucking weekend.”
“...so total damage, two fractured ribs, a concussion, two broken fingers, one staple over the right eye, and you said you needed stitches..?”
“In three different places, in fact. She uh-”
“I didn't know it was three?!” Alya asks, letting her worry take over and break character a little too much, to the surprise of both.
“Tango stabbed my thigh once with each of my knives.”
There's a poorly hidden glee in Virgo's voice as she says that. One Alya elects to ignore, for now.
“And in your report, you claim somewhere along this is where your body camera and tracking device stopped working. Can you confirm that to the microphone?”
She gives the microphone a couple of dramatic ‘test’ taps, and clears her throat. “This is Agent Ray testifying my bodycam indeed malfunctioned while I was choking in my own blood and eating asphalt. Over. Sir. Yes. Sir.”
“...thank you for that.” Her voice is a dagger. “And then what happened?”
“Well she,” Virgo hesitates, looking at the camera at the tall corner of the room, and then back into Handler's eyes, again prodding at where her wristwatch usually is. “Then she-
SATURDAY
0902 Hours
“Then you WHAT!?”
“Pft, you heard me right, fixer.” Tanya scoffs, but there's unintended bragging in her tone. She knows she shouldn't be proud, but she can't help it.
“Y-yeah but, over the whole cockpit? That sounds hyperbolic.”
“You’d think that.” She smokes, her other arm is caressing Virgo's lower back as she keeps her eyes locked with the ceiling fan of the windowless safehouse. “No amount of power washing ever got rid of the stains”
“Ew… I'm never gonna eat a watermelon again”
“Well, maybe he shouldn't have sieged my gear alone.”
Virgo giggles, tucking her head under her Tango's chin, laying somewhere between on top of her and beside her. They're using her camo jacket as a sheet. Only a sports bra and running shorts afford her some modesty.
Tanya taps her cigarette against the blonde's bare shoulder, who smiles proudly at her own lack of reaction, like she's showing off a party trick, only it's far from the first time she pulled that one out. The behemoth smiles, fixing the girl’s fringe and wrapping one arm around while the other runs alongside her silhouette.
“Christ you're just bones. When's the last time you had a cheeseburger?”
“I don't eat meat. Well,” she instantly corrects herself. “I don't eat a lot of meat. Make a mean mapo tofu though, Handler says it's the best one she's had, and she's half-”
“Pump the breaks. You sure you should be telling me that?”
Virgo's cheeks puff for only a moment, before going back to the cool collected self that she thinks she pulls off.
“Don’t get me in even more trouble than you already have, snuff bait.”
“You knooow… you could have zero trouble should you just come with me.”
A smug, conceited smirk from her tells Tanya she's given enough resting time for now.
“Good point.”
“Thank you Tang-hmmf?!”
Her body goes limp, her lips lose control. The taser rod. Tanya probably snatched it when Virgo was showing off her gear, but the fact she didn't notice the pull only makes it better. Jolted right at her bruised abdomen with no warning, it burns unlike anything she's felt before, and that's saying something. Tears group under her right eye, her mouth slacks open, none of her muscles obey her any longer, proving once again how thin her own body's loyalty is.
“But I'm still not done with you, fixer.”
“You fought for over ten hours?”
“Yes.” A single quick nod
“With two broken ribs and a concussion?”
“Mhm.”
“And despite all that sustained damage, you subdued her, and just in time to make it to HQ before admission hours end, at precisely 1659 hours?”
“That is correct.”
“And she pleaded guilty to all accusations and was cooperative during her admission?”
“That is correct.”
Alya groans, then readjusts herself in the chair.
“Fist fighting for ten hours sounds nothing short of absurd, no?” She's rubbing her temple as she asks, murmuring some foreign language cuss, cursing her own situation, probably. “Something you'd see in cartoons, maybe.”
“I like to go above and beyond for my assignments, Ms. Johnson.” Virgo employs a serious, military sounding tone, and struggles to not laugh by the end of the sentence.
Alya shuffles the folder again, this time pulling a piece of paper and ticking some boxes, one only she sees the contents of.
“When questioned about it, the Admissions Officers on duty Saturday said you looked intoxicated.”
“Well, I guess he's next in line to sit here, no?”
Another pause. Alya is noticeably struggling to keep her cool. There's some humiliation in learning that she's got worse conviction than her own hired gun.
“That'll be all, Agent Ray. While there weren't any discrepancies with the evidence during this interrogation, your demeanor and erratic behavior forced my hand, and I will be recommending that you stay on paid leave to go through a more thorough psychological evaluation. Thank you for your time. You're dismissed.”
Virgo's single eye twitches, her face manically switching between anger and sorrow at the ultimate betrayal: time without work. She readies her protest, but the long, claw-like nails of Handler gently tap the metal table and disarm whatever words neared leaving her mouth.
-.- .--. --.. .... -.-- -
“You're dismissed, Agent Ray.”
“Thank you, Handler.”
SATURDAY
2337 Hours
The dimly lit corridor just outside the operations room is, at this point, Alya’s second office. Long has it that staff kindly placed a surprisingly functional wooden chair (at least for hospital standards) and even a small circular desk at the edge where the hallways meet. Normally she's catching up with paperwork, or manning a bulky, military issue laptop, but today she just has two paper cups of coffee. One black, one anything but. Both running cold, much like her. If the time she's spent at that chair was clocked, she'd make more than her boss. That thought, depressing as it is, amuses her. Something has to, on a day like this.
The door opens, the usual surgeon comes out, with the usual bullshit to say. Rest, care, internal bleeding. No thanks. I'm not a collector. My guns are meant to be used, even if they wear out in the process.
Finally she's out. There's bandages around her entire torso, thighs, arms. Nothing in her head besides the broken nose, some staples in her face, and the usual. Must have been minor then.
The two exchange looks. Alya takes both cups and they walk away. Not one word is said until the parking lot. Virgo opens the passenger’s door, lets herself in, and flinches at the nanosecond Handler’s voice is heard.
“Seatbelt.”
“Y-YES MISS.” She clumsily fastens herself. Even the tightest configuration feels like it slacks a little bit on her body.
“I'm sorry Handler, I-”
“We're off the clock, Vi.”
Cutting her off seems to reset the silence. A few awkward minutes of Virgo fumbling with the cigarette lighter, giving up, and using a pocket one after all. At a red light, Alya reaches for a canteen in her purse, and pours something over her black coffee.
“Can I have some, Lee?”
Her tone is cute. Innocent, pleading. Reminds her of little sister wanting to have snacks after bedtime too. Virgo probably can't relate to these types of things, she thinks.
“Can you legally drink already?”
“N-No. So what?!” She asks with all the confidence of a child that knows she'll be told off.
“Then no.” She sips, indifference in her look.
Virgo pouts, arms crossed, loud thumps with her feet, the whole nine yards. “Not like I can legally smoke either and you don't seem to give a shit.” She mutters, staring away at the perfect angle that still lets her see over the shoulder and look at Handler's reaction without being seen, or at least, thinking she's not being seen.
“That's different. They gave you tobacco at the force, I wouldn't take that away from you.”
She pauses, in what's a rare moment, she tries to be funny. “Besides, whiskey is much more expensive.”
“Tch- dumb cheapskate, I hate you.”
“Just drink your sugar water, Virgo.”
That she does. The demerara and cream vanilla macchiato seems to magically vanish from the cup a single second. Another at her huge repertoire of ‘party tricks’.
“Lee… they're onto me, yeah..?”
The lack of an answer says a thousand words.
“I fucked it at admission. I got there high and-”
“You did your job. Got the girl in without making a fuss. Now I'll do mine.”
Virgo’s worries seem to dissipate. She leans back the car seat, and lays down on her side, her eye fixated at Handler.
“Ehe. I'm so lucky to have you.”
Her eye closes.
They pull up to the driveway of Alya's blue and white suburban home. Reaching to wake her up, she has to double back. Virgo's pale as snow. Her blonde short hair, her skinny build, everything about her is so fragile, and yet she's well aware of how deadly it all is too. Virgo was right. Her ‘weak facade’ is crucial for the job.
It makes you want to commit a mistake.
Not today, though. She's young enough to be her daughter. Just a graze of the thumb against her cheek will have to do.
“Sweet little Virgo…”
Just because she isn't a collector, it doesn't mean she can't admire the craftsmanship of a good gun, or at least that's what she tells herself over and over like a mantra, to keep her sanity when she picks up the blonde in her arms, and bridal carries her inside.
“...I'm the lucky one.”