Deus Ex. (˶◜ᵕ◝˶) Happy holidays and a happy new year from me and my current hyperfixation! 🌟 [ bsky ]
Miller reluctantly asking Sarif to convince him to approve of Susie getting augs. Megan and Delara scheming <3 Alex Vega, Chikane, and Malik geeking out about flying. Aria enjoying pretzels. MacReady and Pritchard nagging Adam about something (but he doesn't care bc he's just happy to be among friends ;v;). Shadowchild and Alex Jacobson enjoying the snow. Paul and JC Denton being bros.
Haven't done one of these in a hot minute, but opening tumblr to post this and being greeted by fantastic art of everyone's favorite Augmented punching bag getting his throat cut was clearly a sign of some kind! Major kudos to @trans-rights-adam-jensen! Reread that chapter (in which Jensen also loses a fight to a VTOL's fuselage) right here.
Anyway, this chapter is another little break in the action as Jensen feels out such novel concepts as "hanging out with friends" and "enjoying free time." I promise someone will shoot at him again very soon.
Argento rang him in the early afternoon and asked him whether he was free.
“For what?” he inquired guardedly. He was still pretty sure Malik had misread the situation, but he’d been known to miss a thing or two himself.
“Hand-to-hand, if you’re game. I know I’m rusty, and you won’t break if I forget to pull my rights. Plus, I’m going out of my skull with boredom. If this stand-down period is supposed to help us deal with everything that happened in London, it is seriously backfiring.”
“Know what you mean,” he said, “And good thinking. I’m rusty, too, or Marchenko wouldn’t have tagged me like he did. You don’t have a Quicksilver, do you?”
“Afraid not. I’m just that good.”
He chuckled along with her. “Where and when?”
“Gym’s over on Hartigova, right at the edge of the District. Snést Bolest.”
“Wait. ‘Endure the Pain’? No… it’s perfective: more like ‘Toughen Up.’ Nice.”
“Hey, they take Augs and they have floor space—not a lot of options. Fourteen-hundred? Work up an appetite?”
“Sure. I… think I have dinner plans, though.”
“Oh, well.” He thought he heard a smile in her voice. “Wouldn’t want to keep you. But maybe a beer and a pretzel, after, if it won’t ruin your appetite.”
“With a bioconverter? That sounds perfect. See you there.”
He jogged to the gym to warm up and met Argento outside, where she leaned against the brickwork façade of the gym, absorbing a patch of sunlight with her black sweats. Clearly, she’d run as well: a fine sheen of sweat glimmered on her forehead and darkened the hair at her temples. She ushered him inside and led the way to a stretch of bare hardwood. They doffed shoes and sweats before stepping onto the floor, Jensen stifling an automatic bow to a nonexistent shōmen.
Then he faced Argento and blinked in surprise, not at the athletic muscularity highlighted by her tight Marine Corps shirt and black shorts that hit mid-thigh, but at noticing it. His baser functions had restricted themselves to tactical computations for a long time… and if Argento fought like she shot, he’d need them back in combat mode posthaste. “What’s your background, anyway? MCMAP, I assume—anything else?”
Argento bounced on her toes. “Yeah, I boxed and wrestled in high school and college, learned MCMAP in the Corps. Since then, mostly a mixture, heavy on the boxing. Hard to find people to spar with.”
“I bet. You want to run some distance drills, or jump in and see how it goes?”
“Depends if you can turn off your Quicksilver.”
He poked around in his settings for a minute, confirming three separate times that he wanted to disable it, and gave her a thumbs-up. “Fair and square.”
“Well then—” and she swung directly for his cranium.
Her metal fist shot toward him, and he just barely had time to slip his head. She was already throwing a roundhouse kick at his kidneys, probably twice as fast as Belle, back in Alaska—but not fast enough. He blocked down, swept the ankle into a hold, and stepped between her legs. She soaked up his elbow strike on her forearms, but it still destabilized her and lowered her guard. So when he palmed her face, dropped his weight, and shoved, she went down in a flurry of wild grabs. He pulled a stomp-kick, tapping his foot against her knee with an explosive yell.
“Man,” she said from the ground. “You sure that Quicksilver’s off?”
He dropped her foot and helped her up. “I might get more practice than you, especially the way you’ve been locked behind a desk. That kick almost had me, though. Wasn’t expecting it from a boxer.”
“And I thought you’d just drop your elbow—didn’t see a grapple coming.”
“You’ve never done kata, have you?”
“What, the make-believe fight routines?”
“Sure, laugh it up. But that move’s straight out of bassai dai, and I’ve probably run it ten thousand times. Gotta be quick on the block, though.”
“All right.” Argento blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Again.”
This time, she came in more cautiously, with a jab-jab-cross combo. He shifted side-on, flicked away the jabs, and smashed the cross down with a bastardized downwards block. His backfist took her lightly in the nose as he shifted outside her line and counter-punched her kidney with a kiai.
She threw up her hands. “Point to you. Seriously—you do not fight like anyone I’ve trained with.”
Jensen shrugged. “It’s good to change it up. I haven’t sparred with a boxer in forever, and I’m not looking to get clinched if I can avoid it.”
“Sure, sure. You don’t have to humor me—I don’t mind getting beat. But you’re gonna have to show me some of these, in a bit.”
“Of course.” He stopped a cross and a hook with an inside block hastily converted to outside. Her uppercut followed close on their heels, but his left was free for an open-hand down block that robbed its power while he stepped through a solid oi-zuki to her solar plexus. “Nice. Call that a draw. Uppercut is good against karate—we don’t have great blocks for it.”
“Yeah… if I can get close enough.” She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, and they squared off once more.
Oops, guess I wrote a little of that Adam/Aria genderswap AU I’d been playing with.
She just… looks a little lost, and Aria’s counter is one of the first stops once you get off the elevator. Sure. That’s why Aria calls out to the tall, dark figure who’s pausing to take in the busy office.
Never mind that this woman probably doesn’t do lost. Her stride is long, loping, the kind of confidence that comes with training and being used to carrying a ton of gear and assessing the hell out of a situation before you walk into it. Military, maybe, or police; in TF29, you’re usually one of the two. But police or military don’t usually dress like… that.
But still... Maybe it’s the hesitation, the tension in her shoulders; Aria can’t blame her, the place is chaotic right now, even more so than usual… Still, something makes Aria say, “Hey there. You looking for someone?”
The new arrival’s head turns, and a dark eyebrow rises from under… Huh. The height was the first thing Aria noticed, but the second thing is the shades. They shine dully under the flourescent lights. Shadows fall on sharp cheekbones and make her look… alien, almost. Expressionless.
Augmentations. Aria glances and sees gold knuckles, black shining hands. Like her. She guesses she won’t be alone anymore. But she’s just MEP, the kind of aug nearly everyone used to know before the Incident, and she’s looking at someone with what must be a full HUD in the shades and that too-smooth gait that speaks of leg augs. Those hands are unusual, too, she thinks, as the stranger gets closer. Sleek and beautiful, too beautiful to be Tai Yong. She thinks she sees the edge of a hacking node as a coatsleeve slides up.
Between those and the hair, tightly tied back or maybe slicked, the new agent looks severe, and that’s even before you get to the all-black and the pale skin, the faded scars on her cheek and jaw. Aria had to relearn to hold a weapon after the augs, but she didn’t become one. She’s not sure she can say the same about the woman in front of –
Oh. She realises she’s looking at a really new arrival. The one they’ve had all the briefs about. Sarif augs, Detroit, stealth missions.
Jensen crosses the floor, shining hands loosely at her side like she’s trying to project not a threat from space. She says, “Was told to head to the director’s office.” And there it is, the American accent. And a voice that sounds like she rolled out of bed and smoked sixty before coming into the office, like she's seen too much - or maybe like she's on the edge of a really dirty joke.
It goes down Aria’s spine a little, in a way she didn’t expect. She tries not to swallow. “Miller’s just upstairs. By counterterrorism. Sign’s on the door, can’t miss it.” She smiles, because it doesn’t cost her anything not to be a jerk to the new recruit who’s gonna have to run MacReady’s gauntlet soon enough anyhow. She doesn’t know what makes her say, “I could give you the tour. If you wanted. I don’t have much to do.”
“I don’t want to pull you away from your work,” Jensen says. It’s soft, thoughtful, more than expected for someone who looks like she could tear this whole place down in her sleep. The slightest pull at the corner of her mouth, a half-smile. Slow, and like she’s not used to giving it, but it changes the lines of her face, makes Aria look again and realise that those lips are softer than she realised. “But… thanks.” And it sounds like she really means it. “You’re the quartermaster, right?” That same hesitation, like it’s been a while. She’s heard this is the recruit who took down augmented mercenaries, but apparently small talk is a step too far.
“That’s me. Aria Argento.” She offers her natural hand across the counter, a habit she got into after she realised the aug one tends to make people uncomfortable.
Jensen takes it without hesitation. She must be used to it from the other side. She gives it a firm shake. “Jensen.” She clears her throat, just a little; the hint of a headtilt before she pulls it back, like she might be berating herself for her own awkwardness. “Eve.”
Suddenly all that slow watching becomes, in Aria’s mind, less assessing arrogance and a lot more caution. “Nice to meet you.” She pauses, and then tries on, for size: “It’ll be nice to have someone else shiny round here.”
The hint of a laugh, rough and gentle, and a truer smile, a flash of sharp white teeth. Aria suddenly wishes she could see behind the damn shades; she gets the sense, looking at the lines round Jensen’s mouth, there’d be eye crinkles. Jensen says, “Was just thinking the same.” She half-raises a hand. “I’ll see you.”
And then it’s like the mask’s back on, long stride and straight back and just enough arrogance, and Aria’s watching the swish of that long, dark coat as Jensen heads to the stairs. She’s heard Jensen has a cloaking aug, but here, even with the analysts and the runners, even across the room, Jensen can’t quite disappear into the crowd.
Step by Step by NightingaleTrash
Chapters: 11/?
Fandom: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Adam Jensen, Original Female Character(s), Alex Vega, Faridah Malik, Frank Pritchard, Jim Miller (Deus Ex), Duncan MacReady, Aria Argento
Additional Tags: dadam jensen, Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, self-indulgent AU, Kid Fic, this is my self indulgence au and none of you can stop me, i'll add tags and characters as i go, Minor Character Death, Blood and Injury, grown man gets bullied by baby
Summary:
And we'll figure things out together.
A collection of drabbles about Adam's unexpected venture into fatherhood. Turns out that stealing a baby from the Illuminati isn't as straight forward as hoped.
prompt number 2 of the day: “I see you always buying those [insert flowers] for others but never for yourself, so here you go!” (hands roses) AU with a side of pretend federova survived the game
aria argento [POV character]/yelena federova, read on ao3
The woman walks by every day at noon precisely, holding one large blue hydrangea loosely in her left hand, as if it isn’t important. It is, though. She moves swiftly through the crowd and gracefully dodges anyone who might come into contact with the flower.
It’s not even the most confusing thing about her. That she’s out and about at all, walking around Prague…
You’ve seen people with more augments. Adam drops by your desk at least once every couple of days. But hers are so…visible. TYM unguligrade leg prosthetics, long, deadly, black and silver and every bit the way things were before the Incident. And she’s so tall too, taller than most the cops who should be stopping her every two seconds. But…they don’t. You can’t figure it out. Is it the way she walks, with confidence, and assuredness, and...but you walk like that. You think you do, at any rate. And they won’t leave you alone.
You tell yourself you want to learn from her. That’s the reason you have taken to eating lunch outside. Every day, at noon.
That, and you want to know what the flower is for.
You don’t follow her, one day. You both simply end up walking in the same direction. You, to get some paperwork you left at home, she…
Well, you aren’t sure. She stops dead at a crosswalk, and looks back over her shoulder, just a little, just barely enough where she can see you out of the corner of her eye. One minute, she is there, the next, she ducks behind a corner and is gone.
Cloaking shield, you think. Then again, if she had military augs, she’d definitely be stopped by the police more often.
You don’t see her for another two weeks. At first, you think she might have been freaked out by the way you were following her. You weren’t, but you can’t exactly tell her that. After a week goes by, you start scouring the databases. Tracking augmentations. Looking up police reports, and finally, deportation orders to Golem.
There’s no news of any aug like her getting murdered in the streets, so that’s one small good thing to hang on to. It is, at least until Smiley cheerfully reminds you that most aug murders these days don’t get reported, much less investigated.
She shows back up the day before you are alarmed enough to ask Adam for help. He knows things; he could help, you’re sure. The augmented woman shows up first, though, picking her way carefully through the streets with a hydrangea.
It gives you an idea.
The next day, you are prepared. They’ve only one hydrangea left at the flower shop, and you know she’ll need it, so you ask the woman behind the counter for something nice and are mildly flustered when she offers you a rose.
“It’s a little much, don’t you think?” you ask, keeping hold of it.
The woman grins.
“Take a chance!” she says, in Czech.
The augmented woman is right on time, that day, right at noon. You’re leaned against the building opposite Praha Dovoz today, and you’re going to be smooth about this. There is no way to be smooth about this.
She see you – she has to see you – does she see you? She walks quickly, with purpose, doesn’t even turn her head at the sight of you fiddling with the rose. She’s several steps past you when you regain control of your voice.
“Hi!” you say, and wince inside. You sound like a kid. Hi, let’s be friends!
“Flower woman,” you add, and cringe again, because, she has a name. You just don’t know it, but she has one. It’s probably a very nice name, too.
This does halt her. She turns to face you, one gliding movement, like she has ice skates in her augs or something. God. You shouldn’t be talking right now. You’re going to say something stupid. She is looking at you, frowning, disapproving? The dark eye shadow she wears makes her look especially intimidating.
Take a deep breath. You’ve handled far trickier situation than this one. Ooh-rah. Get it done.
“I work around here,” you start, with a friendly smile. “And I always see you buying those hydrangeas for others, but…”
She’s still staring, face not changing from a frown. Is it even a frown? Is it neutral? Are you reading into it too much? God, what if the flowers were for her?
Rally. You’re nearly done.
“But never for yourself,” you say. “So, um…here you go!”
You hold the rose out to her. They had nothing to match her black and silver augments, or her jet black combat jacket, so you’d gone with a nice, pale yellow. Nothing too much. She glances down at it, then back up to you, brow furrowing and briefly making small lines in her forehead.
You keep the smile on your own face, straighten up. Calmly hold out the flower.
She makes a fist with her right hand and you think for a moment you’ve miscalculated horribly, but she hovers it over her forehead for a brief moment, touches it to her chin, and then accepts the rose.
It’s not a smile so much as the lack of a frown, but either way she looks happy. She runs a thumb along the outside of the petals, and nods sharply at you.
Then she turns, and continues walking. Almost as if it had never happened, except now she dodges all the pedestrians who might bump into both the hydrangea and the rose.
