Sharing a secret smile - miranda!
omega makes her skin crawl. the stench of sweat, bodies huddled in dim corners, flashes of neon lights sprawling against the darkness like fresh wounds, it brings back memories she’s eager to ignore and increases the speed of her steps. a quick glance from the corner of her eye and shepard doesn’t down miranda feels the same, her elegant features drawn into a near scowl of disgust.
she feels the pulse of omega even before she reaches the door, the thudding bass slipping through her armor and beating against her ribs. they’re stopped, much to her immediate annoyance, and as she strains to hear what the batarian is saying over the pulsing swell of the music, it occurs to her that he thinks they’re dancers. (she knows immediately that wearing her civvies was a poor choice for this.)
even if she couldn’t hear, the appraising glint in his eyes as his gaze moves over them both assures her of such. miranda snaps in reply, something about getting out of their way, seeing aria, but a hand is lifted patronizingly in an attempt to block them.
she’d had to put up with this shit in the alliance. men with hungry stares, insinuations offered in pauses and empty smiles, demeaning assignments and the occasional brush of a gloved hand against her armor. shepard had always swallowed back the anger. the alliance doesn’t approve of emotional outbursts, that had always been the message, any complaints should be registered with a commanding officer and a report promptly filed.
blinking away the memory, her gaze snaps back to the batarian who’s saying something about patrons not paying for scars, and she sees miranda’s fingers slowly curling into a fist. they exchange the look that only women who are silently furious understand and it suddenly occurs to shepard that she has no commanding officer here. she’s not in the alliance, not anymore, and there’s no report to file about this, no useless bureaucratic process to bury the entire thing.
something hardens in her features, enough so that miranda arches a brow, and smiles. fist uncurls, the pale sheen of her biotics fading, and miranda gestures lightly. go ahead. they smile at each other for a long moment, understanding perfectly, and then her hand is on the pistol hidden beneath her coat and it’s pointed precisely at the batarian’s chest.
“i’m not a dancer,” shepard states simply, “and you should get out of our way.”
that seems to do the trick, as the batarian all but disappears, and miranda looks at her approvingly as the pistol’s withdrawn to beneath her jacket once more. “you waited longer than i would have,” miranda’s heels click against the metal floor, “but well done, shepard.” another faint smile appears, only for a moment before miranda’s features resume their placid countenance. “glad to see you’re not as boring as your files made you sound, after all.”
