Chapter Text
Zoya doesn't quite understand it but Chief's begun acting strange around her.
The bureau leader had always treated her with the kind of respect she had grown accustomed to expect from anyone with common sense, but lately it's been downright odd. Odd enough that determining when the sudden shift of behaviour truly started was difficult to pinpoint.
From refilling her water bottles for her and waiting outside the threshold of the training room just before she visited it for the usual strength tests... to adjusting her lunch breaks specifically to match the hours Zoya decides to have her meals, when she decides to have her meals. All normal behaviours, nothing drastic and not to be melodramatic but for reasons Zoya couldn’t exactly explain… It was uncomfortable.
Zoya expected this sort of touchy groveling from green rookies that had no concept of self respect but not from Chief of all people. Not the same woman who dug her heels in the sand against the eldritch horror that was the inheritance's corpse... and certainly not the same woman who was foolish enough to try and save Zoya from the clutches of mania even if it meant blowing her head smooth off.
She understands that they'd recently discussed the existence of mutual feelings in passing, if it could even be called a discussion in the first place and not the casual, non committal admittance to being aware of sentiments evolving from platonic to well…
Point was, she didn't exactly expect a sharp, abrupt turn in the way she was treated.
Zoya's discomfort eventually evolved into defensive irritation, the straw that broke the camel’s back being the second she heard Chief tenderly ask if she wanted an extra cube of sugar in her coffee.
"What the fuck is your problem?"
Chief's smile, disarming and surrounded by softness that wasn't there before, almost made Zoya want to take her words back and choke on them. "Pardon?"
"Quit that." She says through her teeth, rolling her shoulder in an attempt to alleviate the tension coiled in her muscles.
"Quit... What?"
"That. Whatever the hell you've been doing the past few weeks. Just hovering and asking me things you wouldn't otherwise" She doesn't accept the offered sugar cube, instead gripping the mug’s handle with a little more force than necessary. Her gaze darts across the break room briefly, critical of everyone unfortunate enough to fall victim to her irritable glare that didn’t immediately and sheepishly look the other way.
Chief on the other hand is unfazed and lets out a scoff that sounds like it’s halfway through turning into a laugh. Exasperated, Zoya wordlessly pulls away by creating a larger space between them in front of the lounge's coffee machine and almost immediately Chief is right back where she can't seem to stay away from. From the corner of her eyes she sees the almost cheeky look on her face and against all odds, it dulls the edges of her meaningless anger. Zoya feels the brush of soft fabric of Chief’s uniform sleeves against her own bare arms as she reaches over and grabs a second sugar cube for herself instead. "You mean being nice?"
Did Chief really think she was that stupid?
"I don't care what you call it. Just stop doing it."
Chief finally laughs and its rings bounce off against the confines of Zoya's ribcage. She doesn't have time to get even more annoyed about that before the head of grey-blue begins to bob away. "Alright, tough girl. It's just sugar."
“Just sugar” she says, blissfully unaware of the way it clogs up Zoya's airways and cloyingly sticks to her throat.
The next time it happens, Zoya's gotten a better grip of her temper. At least she thinks so.
Tending to the injured after a fight is no unfamiliar chore. She's used to the sting of alcohol, antiseptics, smoke and blood permeating the air and sticking to her clothes even long after the fact.
What was supposed to be a short trip to Syndicate on a special dispatched mission to assist in moving innocent families out of areas that were still at high risk of mania contaminations turned into a full on confrontation with a few overenthusiastic - but otherwise green - gangsters that concluded wonderfully with the overdue taste of victory and Zoya coming out of it with merely a few, albeit deep, scratches.
Chief herself was in better condition, much to Zoya’s inward but apparent relief.
In the midst of dressing the wounds that her sinner abilities couldn't heal fast enough, Zoya hears the rustling of bed sheets and the tinkling of the silver zippers of her jacket. She doesn't turn to know that the woman that was napping her exhaustion away on the bed behind her had woken up.
Zoya had about five minutes of peaceful silence before Chief finally spoke up, voice raspy from yelling out orders and sleep.
"Do you need me to use the protestas?"
Her lips curl a little at the implication even with the patient tone of voice. "No. I just need some time," Zoya turns her head, her eyes falling onto the way Chief's laying on her stomach, nearly hanging off the edge of the bed just to be close.
She looks unbearably small like this, swallowed up by the weight of Zoya's jacket, cocooned in warmth against the biting chill that even the Legion's stronghold can't protect them from. It’s quiet in the building round this time of the night, the possibility of this fleeting moment of peace getting interrupted is much lower in percentage at the very least.
With that thought, the Legion's Commander lets go of the apprehension she'd been holding onto these past few weeks for a moment and reaches out, her hand falling over Chief's head and tangling in her hair in an affectionate gesture. "You on the other hand, look cold. You should get some rest. It's a long way back to the bureau and I don't want you catching anything with that pitiful immunity of yours."
Chief sniffs, her nose growing one shade pinker as silver eyes avert from having to look at Zoya's grin. "I slept plenty. Besides, I'm going to have to drive us both back anyway." Then, just because she seems to get off on adding a barb, "That is if I want us both to make it back in one piece."
Coming from anyone else, the insinuation would have wounded her pride, instead Zoya only finds herself chuckling in fond amusement. "You just can't help yourself, huh? My bike's faster and I'm not really interested in entertaining any more arguments from you."
The giggle that bubbles out of Chief's chest spreads across Zoya's chest again, no less uncomfortable, no less invasive. She's back to wanting to be annoyed with her again, blaming her for eliciting sensations she wouldn't otherwise experience.
Suddenly she feels Chief's hand on her shoulder - cold, like mint pressed against the aching wounds on her sides or the ticklish autumn breeze brushing against her face.
The damn protestas.
"You always take such good care of me, I almost feel guilty," she speaks up before Zoya could even think about protesting. Something soft and warm brushes against Zoya's temple, accompanied by the unmistakable sensation of body heat pressing against her back. "Thank you. I don't say it enough."
The bottle of alcohol in Zoya's gloved hand wheezes and whines as it crumples within the pressure of her hand, drops of liquid pooling wastefully onto the stone floor as she holds herself back just enough not to fully melt into Chief’s warm hands.
Sometimes when the privilege of letting her mind wander comes to Zoya by chance, she thinks people would be easier to fix if they were engines.
She's good at her job, good at keeping morale high, spirits bright and convictions unshakeable. It's different when it gets too personal, too close... too intimate.
They had a good thing going, a blend of casual and intense. When frustrations are high and relief is what Chief craves, Zoya offers herself up gladly; revels in getting to see her unravel like a thunderstorm that's been hovering overhead for a little too long.
It's a blend of the bittersweetness of being glad she's the first choice of respite and knowing that perhaps that's all Zoya's going to be good at - the physical bit that doesn't require words and affirmations she can't provide without sounding like a lovesick fool.
Too good to be true, of course.
"Stop." Her voice sounds foreign to her, breathless and thick with arousal she's learned to relieve on her own.
Zoya feels Chief halt obediently, her hand halfway through undoing the commander's pants, knelt between her knees, silver eyes bright even within the dim light of her room. Zoya thinks it's the most beautiful thing she'll ever lay eyes on.
"Are you... Do you..." She stutters, sounding so painfully insecure as she sits up and searches Zoya's gaze. "I'm sorry. I should have asked you first."
She doesn't want to hear the rest of it. Zoya's already moving, sitting up in bed and carefully moving Chief aside so she can slip her boots back on.
"Zoya, am I doing something wrong?"
She tastes blood wet her tongue before she speaks. "No."
"You never let me... I just wanted to–"
"Should get going before someone notices."
It's just sex. Chief comes to her to relieve her frustrations onto a body that can take a few bloodied scratches and teeth marks without shoving her away. Not the other way around.
Zoya's good at her job. Even better at fixing machines she breaks.
It's quiet in the bureau today.
Not in the way that the cafeteria is miraculously devoid of chatter, more that the seat in front of her painfully is empty.
Zoya tries not to think of it too much. Far better to ignore how cold her side feels in front of the coffee machine than acknowledge the ringing behind her eyes.
She forgets her water jug when she enters the gym to vent out her frustrations and leaves mid rep to quench her thirst. The water tastes bitter and she winces as it scrapes the sides of her throat like sandpaper.
Not the worst direction her already shitty day could have gone. That being said, it didn't make it any better either.
The bureau feels much too closed, too oppressive, and though that made common sense, it didn't make the already irritable Legion Commander feel any better. In complete and casual disregard for the strict timeline and schedule set for sinners to walk around the facility unsupervised, Zoya's sudden skin-crawling need to get away from both awestruck and digital eyes led her through the stairwell of the fire exit. The sound of her heavy boots on hollow, metal steps filled her ears, enough that she couldn't hear her own heavy breaths as air became increasingly difficult to inhale.
The first brush of wind - actual wind, none of the dry, recycled, air conditioned kind that circulates the bureau - was a welcome, punching balm to her lungs. Navigating the place was a nightmare unto itself already, it didn’t help that the encroaching twilight made being able to see even more difficult. Using the railings of the building's rooftop deck, Zoya leaned over the edge to get a hold of herself, stubborn enough to toughen out the sudden bout of dizziness before eventually sinking down the stone floor; her back pressed against the cold wall.
She doesn't know how long she lasted like that, doesn't really care. When it finally subsided, when Zoya could finally, inwardly describe what she could actually feel and sense within her immediate periphery. All before the ringing in her ears faded and eventually she began hearing the distant blasting of alarm horns from the building below.
"Emergency facility lock down. S-class sinner missing. Initiating emergency security measures"
Zoya thunked the back of her head against the concrete wall, lucid enough to make a sardonic snrk. With her enhanced senses she could hear the frantic hollering of orders and uniformed steps running around like a pack of lost lambs.
Typical of the MBCC to overreact at the thought of having lost track of some mediocre Syndican gangster.
They deserve a good scare, she thinks. Finally strong enough to push herself up onto her feet, Zoya stands tall above the railings and watches behind short silver strands of hair as more personnel gather by the gates, clearly to get in the way of anyone attempting to leave.
And yet in the midst of the cacophony of voices, Chief naturally stood out the most. Like a string on the other end of her soul suddenly pulled taut, Zoya senses vividly both her relief and imminent annoyance. Through it all, she finds amusement in that.
"Won't be long now."
Zoya wonders what excuse would buy her the most grace. "Needed air", "Went out to exercise some more", "Lost track of time"...
Well,
"The flag above your office looks pretty ugly."
She sees it then - the flicker of a million different emotions running through Chief's pretty silver eyes all in real time. Standing by the door from the stairwell, shoulders rising and falling from the effort it took to climb all the way up. It takes all of Zoya's effort not to throw her head in laughter when Chief finally settles on an expression - a withering glare.
"I leave the bureau for all but 12 hours and I come back to alarms screeching that the MBCC's most dangerous sinner has attempted to flee without approved leave or specially assigned mission."
"Most dangerous sinner huh? That's overly generous."
"That's what you choose to focus on?"
Her lips curl into a snarl, defenses and irritation rising all too fast, "You government folk like to prop me up as some kind of villain when I'm hardly worth using the entire Minos task force on. Once again, your subordinates are as useless as they are melodramatic"
Zoya watches as Chief bristles, her shoulders snapping back, tension coiled in her frail form and for a second, a shiver of both satisfaction and anticipation washes over the legion commander.
“I just don’t want you getting yourself hurt by accidentally triggering some of the bureau’s more drastic security measures. If you wanted to step out for some air, you could’ve just told me-”
“You’re a bleeding heart, little Chief. It doesn’t suit someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” Chief says back, incredulous, her face twisted in restrained anger. Like a starved wolf licking the air at the first whiff of blood, Zoya only wants to press her further, to see Chief break character - give her reasons not to feel the guilt of shoving her aside out of some self-righteous quest of keeping others at arm’s length for their own good. “What do you actually think about someone like me, Zoya?”
All of a sudden the dam bursts, once again flooding her senses, demanding to be felt.
“I think you try too fucking hard. These past few weeks of special attention, the hovering the gentle voices, the service,” Zoya says it like the reminder disgusts her, a storm of emotions smashing angrily against the jagged cliffs of her own mind as she paces; the blunt of her nails digging into her scalp as she all but spits out all her grievances. “Just you acting the way you do, like I’m some unpredictable, cornered beast you gotta coax out of some fucking alley.”
Back all too soon was the suffocating squeeze in her chest, the muscle trapped within the very bars of her own ribs struggling to beat against the sudden flood of discomfort. In the haze of red, from the corner of Zoya’s eye she catches the briefest sight of silver, brilliant, invasive and striking through the smoke bright enough to see through.
Zoya sucks in a breath through her teeth, fighting back against the guilt coiling in her stomach. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" Deservedly, Chief snaps at her curtly, the stubborn set of her brows drawn together.
"Like I hurt your feelings."
"But you did." She spits it out as it is, unafraid and so steadfast even when Zoya’s given her several reasons to walk away just now. “Are you quite done?” Despite asking, she doesn’t wait. “Good. My turn. You’re a prick.”
The sudden, out of character curse takes Zoya aback long enough for Chief to catch her breath before she continues, "If all I've been doing - the gestures and the little extra consideration has been making you so uncomfortable you should have told me from the get go, I would have made it less intense, less overwhelming of a change for you."
She shakes her head, her mantra interrupted with the sound of what Zoya can only interpret as Chief choking back unshed tears. "I can admit to being a little, I don't know! Excited? Encouraged to maybe show you truly how much I care because I do and by the perishing star, Zoya, I'm not afraid to show it but god did you have to make me feel like hell for it?"
Against her better judgement and truly, without her really thinking to begin with, Zoya's hand reaches out in an almost instinctive need to comfort. The pang that goes through her at Chief's immediate rejection only makes thinking straight even harder.
Chief scoffs, her demeanor softening just slightly to say, "Frankly, I don't even know what I'm doing. Maybe that's my fault for taking advice from Shawn and Graves of all people." The whooping of sirens probably ceased long ago, Zoya only really knows because the whining eventually got replaced by the sounds of the bureau leader pacing on stone and the near inaudible sniffles that she wouldn't have caught if it weren’t for the curse of her enhanced senses. Then Chief stops in front of her, more determined than ever, "But I want to try anyway. I want to do this right so I'll ask you again, am I doing something wrong?"
"No." Zoya grits out, the same answer as last night, the same pit forming in her stomach. She’s too ashamed to look her in the eye, doing anything and everything to chase away the unsettling urge to simply yell and shove as she rubs the rough underside of her hand over her face.
"Then tell me what you want, what you truly want."
"Your patience is unnerving."
"Well it's also quite finite, believe it or not!”
Surprisingly, Zoya finds it in herself to laugh, even if wry but defeated, "I just want you to be as you've always been. I don't need you to change the way you've always treated me - and honest to god I don't know why having you look at me like I'm someone worth living for makes me want to claw my skin off. Just-"
Chief’s voice raises in exasperation as she interrupts, "Believe it or not, you are!"
"And you’re so fucking sure! Do you realize who I am is always who I'm going to be?" Mediocre, unworthy, difficult to love amongst all else.
Another pause passes between them as they catch their breaths, shoulders rising and falling with each heave. Obstinately, Chief keeps going, determined to keep Zoya from running away, forcing her to stand in front of the bureau leader that can’t seem to pick up on hints… or maybe Chief’s seen through it all from the start and thinks being persistent will eventually get her the results she wants.
Maybe she’s right.
"Your pride will truly be the death of us both but that's not going to keep me away like you think it will." Chief smiles, tired, exasperated, though the fire behind her eyes had not once dimmed.
Zoya tastes the familiar sour tang of blood spreading on her tongue, no less guarded even if her iron-clad defenses were waning from someone so immovable even in the face of a dog snapping its jaws as a front to conceal its true fear. "So what, you think you deserve to be praised for throwing yourself to the wolves as a willing sacrifice? You think you'll just keep getting away with shit just because all your problems worked themselves out just fine in the past?"
"Berate me all you want, tell me I'm stupid and naive for - lord forbid - falling in love with someone I've spent longer years missing than actually knowing, but don't think that your self deprecation's going to keep me from reaching out for you when I've already spent this long begging for you to just come back." The casual confession knocks the wind out of her lungs, her mind racing as Zoya sees the way Chief's keeping herself in check from reaching out to her, standing in place… Giving her the space Zoya had stupidly, stubbornly created in between them - standing on the other end of the chasm, just barely strong enough to keep holding onto the fragile drawbridge that's kept them from plummeting down into the ravine below. "You think I want to let you go now that you're finally in front of me?”
Whatever reply that Zoya might have hurriedly supplied in that moment never makes it out of her mouth, the maelstrom of thoughts interrupted by the grating crackle of radio static coming from underneath Chief’s gray coat. “Chief, the team has eyes on you atop the roofdeck with S-028. Can you confirm your location and status?”
Zoya’s eyes narrow, her nails suddenly digging into the palm of her hand as she observes Chief’s demeanor to the familiar sound of her adjutant’s voice like a hawk. The bureau leader seems to sense the shift in tension just fine, her movements slow, her voice clear as she fishes the device out of her pockets and speaks into the mic; her glassy gaze remaining glued to Zoya’s. “Return to your posts. I have everything under control.”
In the split second that the sinner lets her guard down, she’s abruptly reminded of why her restlessness makes perfect sense. “Hold fire. Return to post.”
She’s not stupid enough to ignore the aggressive reminder of what she represents and will forever be to the rest of the paranoid bureaucrats under Chief’s command. Zoya doesn’t hear Chief calling out for her on the swift return down the stairwell, the testimony of affection of what should have made her happy doing nothing to soften the blow of reality barraging down on weary shoulders.
For once, vindication tastes like shit.