A Meme For Yall

A meme for y’all

me when i have a vague idea of two characters and half a plot:

A/N: After about a month and a half wait, I have finally plucked up the courage to post part 2!! After this there are only 3 more sections and if i feel like breaking some hearts, an alternate ending

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Part II: Catch

Bella tugged at her hood. Despite knowing it concealed her face well with the deep shadow created in the dim light, she needed something to do with her hands and hoped it would be succinct and subtle enough to not be noteworthy.

She jumped as Manic Alchemist spoke, ripping her hands away and tucking them together in her lap. He sat halfway across the room from her, legs crossed and leaning against an ebony high backed chair that screamed try-hard villain. “This is a surprisingly impromptu meeting for you,” he said, smooth and undaunted. Anyone who heard about him before actually hearing him was always surprised by the disconnect between his diction and his voice - a teenager with the everyday language of a college lecture. 

“Well,” Bella, the Crimson Programmer, said, fumbling. She was always terrible at lying with short notice. Twisting the finger of her new glove with her bare hand, she continued, “Sometimes I worry about you, squirt. Your ego took quite the beating this weekend. Maybe you need more of my tech to supplement your talents.” With a quiet pop as the Crimson Programmer squeezed her wrists, hidden capsules released a swarm of Crimson Nanites into the room. Perhaps her fiddling could pass the movement off as a nervous gesture.

Meanwhile, Manic Alchemist bristled at her jab. “Thank you for the offer,” he said, “but I don’t have the budget for any upgrades at the moment. You have a steep price.”

The Crimson Programmer forced lightness into her voice, saying, “Come on. Isn’t it worth it for the fee? I’m top of the line. You were lucky to find me.” She was desperately stalling for time. The cluttered room would increase travel time for the nanites. Disguised by her hood and minimal self control keeping her head trained on Manic Alchemist, her eyes sporadically flickered from the bots to him. Distantly she wondered what Zach would think. He obviously assumed she would use the glove she showed him, maybe other equipment she’d developed in his company, to apprehend a B-list villain. Theoretically, she could, but it was just so much easier to use her nanites. She was using the latest version, 6.3, which was exclusively for her personal use, since it was still in beta and far too dangerous and useful to put in anyone else’s hands. Besides, she deserved to treat herself with one of a kind new toys every once in a while. 

“Maybe,” Manic Alchemist said, breaking through her train of thought. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I have no money to spare! As you said so subtly, my attack this weekend failed, so everything I risked was lost.” Lights began flickering at the edge of the room; he was getting dangerously ticked off. While his anger would make him less observant, it would dramatically increase his likelihood of storming off or driving her out, and that would doom the easy picking he served as one of her more docile contacts.

“Don’t worry,” she said, trying to smooth over his frustration. “You can get new equipment on credit. Interest rates are very low, especially for regular high-paying customers like you, and I already have some updates planned for what you’ve purchased from me already.”

Manic Alchemist drummed his fingers on the sliver of free space at the table he sat at and said simply, “Perhaps.” The heat had drained from him, but his outburst had left both of them on edge, tense in biting, barely sustained diplomacy. 

At the prompting of a beep updating the Crimson Programmer on the Nanites’ progress, she jumped in. “Say that you did get the updates. For a reduced price, even. What would you do then?” She hoped the usual tactic of getting the Alchemist to talk about himself would be distraction enough. He loved gloating, even if he would never  admit it. Thankfully for his own sake, he only did it in secure spaces where he was sure no one would interrupt the schemes he revealed. Though amusing, it was embarrassing to watch villains monologue in front of heroes that would then effortlessly defeat them after the villains revealed their plans. 

Slowly at first, almost as though skepticism and tension from earlier was holding him back, Manic Alchemist began talking, which quickly became ranting, about his grand plans. He continued speaking while the Crimson Programmer barely paid attention to him as she glanced constantly at her overengineered watch that was receiving updates about the Nanites’ status. It was agonizing, watching them creep across the room, hindered by Manic Alchemist’s mess. They flickered in and out of sight, climbing the wreckage of experiments, hiding behind trash cans littering the floor, avoiding piles of unidentifiable goo. There was no clock on the wall, so the Crimson Programmer was certain time was flowing slower than molasses, taunting her with the potential of failure. What if he saw the nanites crawling across the room? Surely he would with their snail-like pace. 

Finally, finally, they reached Manic Alchemist’s scuffed and stained boots. So as to not make their presence immediately obvious, the Crimson Programmer tore her eyes away from the bots and forced herself to look Alchemist in the face without cringing away from the possibility of eye contact. Her subtly inclined head might tip him off otherwise. 

Now sitting forward, his black eyes glittered with passion, frenzy, delight, as he monologued about his ambitions for tearing apart chunks of the city. It was impossible to tune back into what Manic Alchemist said, so the Programmer just watched his hands fly, darting out and mimicking patrol routes and flight paths and explosions. It was strangely endearing. Absently, she wondered how she ended up working so closely on a regular basis with teenagers. One of his hands abruptly stilled and jerked to his scalp. Risking a glance at her watch, the Crimson Programmer saw the bots were almost in place. Manic Alchemist’s fingers continued to reach towards the Nanites. A few more millimeters and the plan would fall apart. 

There were no contingencies for her to fall back on.

“Hey!” the Crimson Programmer said, lurching forward and brandishing her glove-clad hand in his face. “You should see my newest project.”

Manic Alchemist froze, dropping his hands away from his head and leaning farther forward, eyes narrowed, intrigued. The Crimson Programmer barely withheld a sigh of relief. If he suspected anything from her interruption, he held back, likely his curiosity triumphing over any other trains of thought. Impatiently, he waved his hand in her direction, prompting her to continue.

“You see, there are chips in the fingers with wireless probes that detect and hijack electrical currents,” explained the Crimson Programmer. “The signals feed through the wires…” She trailed off, waiting for him to catch on, hoping the time he took to connect the dots would be enough for the Crimson Nanites to lock in position.

“And you can take control of whatever you’re holding with the glove. That’s brilliant!” Manic Alchemist said after a few seconds, sounding impressed, for once. Technology wasn’t his strong suit, and he was loathe to admit his shortcomings. 

“Thank you.”

“Aren’t you going to elaborate?”

“No,” the Crimson Programmer said as her watch buzzed, signaling the Nanites were in place. “I don’t need to stall for time anymore.”

“What? So none of your offers… What have you done?” Manic Alchemist said, panicking. His face was pale and strikingly obvious in the gloomy light. She had never seen him so unsettled, so scared.

“I'm sorry. Good night, my friend,” she said, the last two words dripping with mockery. With that, the Crimson Programmer pressed the capsules on her wrists again. Manic Alchemist stiffened, spasming once as his nervous system was tapped into, and collapsed bonelessly into his chair. If her ambitions weren’t on the line, she would have pitied his helpless form. “You were just too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

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me: *tries to comprehend romantic attraction* *fails to comprehend romantic attraction*

me: it's probably fine, my romance story can work without that, right?

I adore the trope of the emotionally constipated over-competent character, the one who malfunctions as soon as they start having feelings and/or receiving affection, but you know what we need more of? characters who are exactly the same but with a sunshine disposition, always smiling, ready to help, cracking jokes. no frowns, only puzzled polite stares when someone notices them. they panic, yes, but only through a smile frozen on their face the moment they realise they caught feelings. someone extremely competent and hard working that is underestimated because they act like the comedic sidekick, finally cracking as soon as they realise they can because someone will catch them. pulitzer worthy

taglist: @enchanted-lightning-aes

lmk if you want to be added to the taglist (only two more things to post for this short story, though)

A/N: I did mean to space these apart evenly from now, but that’s okay. this is bella presenting zach with the thing she caught, but like any good cat owner, zach is confused but mostly grateful and touched by the gift

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Part IV: Gift

Walking down the hall, Bella tugged at the emotions tangling in her chest. Remorse. Pity. Excitement. Guilt? Triumph. Good enough, and normal enough feelings for the situation. She knew she wasn’t the epitome of a good person, seeing as she personally supplied tools for campaigns injuring people and destroying the city, but personal check-ins that assured her she wasn’t a heartless monster were nice.

The headquarters of Miranda’s Protection Agency was empty; only suckups and overachievers worked Saturday afternoons in the office since that time was reserved for fieldwork or family time. Bella checked her phone, swiping from the night vision equipped cameras showing Manic Alchemist to double-checking where Zach was. Good. He was in his office.

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