Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Third Rail thrums with dozens of Railroad personnel, all raising a glass to their victory. The Institute is gone and they’re still standing. Victory smells like old beer, stale smoke, and piss.

It’s quieter in the back of the room where she sits.

“Never thought I’d live to see the day: Institute gone, synths free. All because of you,” Deacon flops down onto the cushy bench seat next to Bullseye. The vinyl cushion is warm from the last person who sat here, probably someone asking her for how it all went down. Over. And over. And over. Him taking the seat is a blessing, if she thinks about it. 

“Me and a whole lot of other people. And you,” Charlotte clinks the neck of her beer bottle against his. Briefly catching his eye for a wink before she looks back over the crowd. “Don’t forget that. None of this would’ve happened without you.”

“Me? You’re the force of nature. I just stood around looking pretty. The pep squad. ‘Rah, rah, rah!’” He feigns a cheer before relaxing, resting his arm over the back of the bench.

“Give yourself some credit, Dee.”

“Can’t, sorry. It’s not in my programming.”

“A little credit? Just once. Tonight. Right now.” She turns to look at him, pushing the brim of her hat up. Her hazel eyes twinkle in the warm light. Her cheeks flushed from the excitement, the beer, or the compliments. He bets it’s the excitement.

“Yeah. I guess I did help a little. The dead drops. The railsigns. Shame about the handshake. It would’ve been so clutch...”

Charlotte taps him in the ribs with her elbow, “Aw, you did it. See? That wasn’t so bad.”

“Are you kidding me? That was horrible.” He holds his side, feigning an injury where she touched him. “I think I’m having a stroke. Do you smell burning toast?”

She laughs, shaking her head at him. They slip into a comfortable silence, reclining on their bench, watching the celebratory crowd pulse and move. Another cheer goes up as a familiar face descends into the Third Rail and joins in the revelry. The party is a collective exhale from people who’ve been holding their breath and gritting their teeth for years.

He takes a deep breath.

“The thing is,” he leans over. She reflexively tilts her head towards him to listen. “I’ve seen a lot of shit in my time, been a lot of places, traveled with a lot of people, and you-”

She frowns, batting at the air between them dismissively. “C’mon. Dial it back.”

“Let a guy finish, will ya?” Deacon swats her hand out away. “And you take the cake. You helped me, and everyone I care about, achieve something we’ve been working on for so long. We trusted you. I trusted you and it... it paid off.”

During two or three (or seven) times he’d practiced this, his voice was full of gratitude, not wonder. Sitting here, it was beginning to take on a life of it’s own. The party was throwing off his game. Too many people all feeling the same sense of relief.

“Yeah, well, that’s what trust is.” She turns to look at him, her brows knit together. “You work on it, you build it up. And sometimes it pays off. It doesn’t just happen. I can say the same things about you. I trusted you to get me into the Institute, to have my back, and you did.”

She shrugs at his silence, turning to watch the crowd again.

“That I did, that I did.” Deacon repeats to himself.

He takes a deep breath and exhales, steeling himself for the crescendo.

“I know things are gonna get crazy,” he leans over to continue, “and I wouldn’t blame you for walking away from the Railroad, with Shaun and new responsibilities and all, but this kind of thing we have going on, the two of us? I think it’s a good thing. It feels like a good thing and I want… I kind of want to see where it could go.”

“Ha!” she leans away to laugh. “It’s a ‘thing’ now? We have a ‘thing’? Because I distinctly remember kissing someone who said it ‘wasn’t a good idea’ and I backed off.”

“At the time,” he corrects. “It wasn’t a good idea at the time. It wasn’t like it was easy for me to say. Yeah, rejection stings but I was right.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“What?” Deacon’s eyebrows rise from behind his sunglasses.

“You were right. It wasn’t a good idea. We needed clear heads to get here. But why is it a good idea now? Because the Institute’s gone?” She shakes her head, taking a swig from her beer.

Because there was no doubt gnawing at him anymore. Whispering in his ear. Coloring his dreams when he managed to sleep. He didn’t need to stay quite as objective, didn’t need to watch for tells or clues. Her loyalties were true. True the entire time. A Gen 3 with her face didn’t waltz back into HQ with the right codewords and the right smirk and the right memories. She did. The real Bullseye wasn’t sitting a cell, or in an incinerator in the Institute. He didn’t teleport her to her death. She didn’t give their operation up for blood or family. The same person who walked out of that Vault walked back into HQ, time and time again. The Institute was dead and gone, and all by her hand. The nagging “what if”s drowned out by the sound of its reactor exploding.

“Yeah, exactly. We can breathe again. Things are changing for the better. Starting a new chapter. Future so bright I’m wearing shades. Yadda yadda yadda.”

“Things’ve changed, but they aren’t so different. There’ll be retaliation, there’ll be more fighting, Hopefully less, but it’ll be there. There’s still work, Dee. A lot of it. We’ve still got synths living in a world that’s still scared of them.” She takes another sip from her beer. “I’m still a mess. You’re still a liar.”

He wonders when that particular truth will ever stop stinging. Deacon looks down the neck of his beer bottle, open but undrank. The sweat on the glass loosening the label for him to pick at. She shifts in her seat, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her thighs, staring out into the raucous crowd. The silence between them growing thicker and heavier. 

The knot of his stomach doing the same. Speak or spew, it’s his only option.

“Hey,” he calls out, “can I get a do-over? Maybe I duck out the back, come back in a few minutes in a new shirt, and we try this conversation again? Or just forget it ever happened? I’d be totally cool with that.”

She looks up and swats at his shoulder. “Oh, please. I only said things aren’t as different as you think they are.”

Charlotte sits back, twisting her body to face him, resting her side against the back of the bench. Her smile fades as she looks at him, letting him know this conversation isn’t going where he wants it to, but at least it's going somewhere.

“I have a half-grown kid calling me ‘Mom’ now, Dee. I’m a package deal. I can’t bring people into his life who are going to disappear on him when things get tough. I think this world’s gonna be hard enough to be a kid in, much less the kind of kid he is.”

He nods. It’s a gentle enough reminder that he’s not cut out for this thing. She’s already got complications, and he’d just pile more on. Emboldened by their victory, he thought anything was possible. Anything but this, he laughs at his arrogance.

“Yeah, I get it,” his voice is soft and resigned.

“I’d call your bluff, but I’m not even sure I get it,” Charlotte chuckles. For a moment she watches the bubbles in her beer, smirking to herself before looking up at him. “Knowing all of that, you still want to go from ‘not a good idea’ to a ‘thing’?”

His chest flutters.

“Y-yeah. We are a thing, we have a thing. Yeah, whatever it is. I just don’t...” Words fail him for the first time in a long time. He just shrugs, hoping she gets it.

“...want to lose this thing,” she finishes, resting her hand on his chest. “Yeah, same.”

Charlotte leans in. He hesitates close the distance between her lips and his. Giving her an out, a moment for her to laugh and pull away, but she smiles and draws him closer. Her lips are cool against his, malty and bitter with beer. He brushes his knuckles over her jawline, reaching out to cup the back of her head, fingers pressed to her scalp. Pushing away the first time was hard enough, fuck if he’ll do it again.

The roaring of blood in his ears is drowned out by the sound of... rain? He wonders if he’s managed to jinx himself into actually having a stroke.

His second kiss presses against the teeth of her smile, and he feels her body shake with restrained laughter. Charlotte pulls away. Opening his eyes, he realizes the rain is applause. He turns to see the assembled crowd of Railroad faces clapping and cheering, a few whoops and whistles ring out. Carrington raises his glass. Drummer might be crying. All eyes on them.

Charlotte plucks her hat from her head and holds it up to shield them from the crowd’s view.

"Fucksake,” she hiccups, trying to hold in her laughter.

“Uh, hate to break it to you, but with all these witnesses, I think we might officially be seeing each other now.”

“Oh, is that how that works?” she asks, wide-eyed, daring him to explain.

“Yeah, read it somewhere. If ten or more people know, then…” he shrugs in apology.

Charlotte shakes her head, her laughter dying away with a sigh. “Here’s to seeing each other, then,” she whispers against his lips.

He presses a hard kiss to her mouth, one she eagerly returns.