satchmosoloist:
Big Band knows how it feels. Rather, he remembers how it feels to be standing at the top of the heap. You feel strong, you feel invincible. He was lucky, he learned his limits and managed to survive. Peacock got lucky too, but she was still riding the high that her two Parasites provided. Back in New Meridian, she probably felt the same way he had. In Hive City, she was… well, normal. She must’ve hated it.
“That’s what you think, huh? I’ve seen how you strut, Peacock. Maybe you won’t get burned, but you might get plucked if you ain’t careful.”
The girl’s got a bad case of selective hearing. Sure, she listened to the myth of Icarus, apparently, but words like Be Careful or Don’t Do That just go in one ear and out the other.
She could’ve died the night they met in New Meridian, and the night they reunited in Hive City, but it didn’t slow her down. If anything, it made her more eager to jump back into things. He doesn’t want to see her hurt, but more than that, he doesn’t want to see her dead. But maybe he can’t stop her from running back into the fray.
Big Band sighs like a low note on a saxophone. Who knew raising children was so difficult?
“Just watch yourself. I might not be there the next time you try to pick a fight with a half dozen guys. I heard death isn’t a permanent thing here, but that doesn’t mean either of us should be runnin’ to try it out.”
Burned, plucked, same thing! She doesn’t see a difference, even as Big Band is insisting there is one. Peacock knows he’s looking out for her, cares about her yadda yadda, but she wants to somehow show him that she’ll be fine. Even all that they’ve been through together doesn’t seem to be enough for him, apparently. She wants to say that, wants to verbalize how frustrating it is to go through all that she did and still be seen as incapable.
Maybe that’s not what he means, but it sure as hell looks like it. She could blow him off as easily as she usually does, but for once, she bites back.
“I can handle it all just fine, Ben.”
The young girl says it with enough conviction that proves how serious she is about it, age be damned. “I’m an ASG soldier! I wouldn’t be one if I couldn’t fight for myself! Sure, I’m still learning, and sure, I ain’t got everything, but I will!”
But she will, she thinks, her frustration slowly growing as the seconds pass. Taking in a deep breath, she frowns, crossing her arms and looking away from him. At least she knows the big guy will ask her to cool off, so she tries, forcing herself shut for once. The silence between them is louder than all of Big Band’s instruments put together, something which she breaks with a sentence she can finally verbalize:
“Every time you think I ain’t gonna make it, I do. When are y’gonna take me seriously?”
