Jeez that was perfect angst with the brainwashed reader x the dispatch girls... can we please have a sequel with how the girls would react with, say, a reader with amnesia from the shroud tech being removed from her so suddenly, and how would each girl go about trying to get the reader's memories back? I'd prefer this to be angst to fluff, but you can do whatever you want
Tell Me Who I Am: Headcanons (Coupé, Invisigal, Blonde Blazer, Prism & Malevola x fem!reader)
Warnings: Cursing, memory loss and medical stuff, amnesia, mentioned brainwashing, angst to fluff & hurt/comfort (Words: 2.3k)
(Author’s note: Hiiii!!! I’m so glad you liked the first part! I was kind of stuck on how to continue from it, but your idea really inspired me, so I hope you enjoy! as always, please do not repurpose, steal, or otherwise misuse my work in any way, including anything involving Al.)
- She’d been tempted to cut out those “augmentations” right then and there.
- Shroud was a megalomaniacal monster, with what he did to people who were too down on their luck to say know. And she knew monsters.
- But she’d resisted the temptation, allowing the others to care for the removal, instead opting to hold your hand and sit with you, rubbing her thumb over your still fingers.
- In fact, she was there the whole time, silently keeping vigil over you as your knight in less-than-shining armour. If she couldn’t protect you then, she’d protect you now.
- The second your eyes opened a crack, she was fully alert, her whole being focused on you.
- But the confusion in your eyes, replacing that soft affection you usually held in every look, made her blood run cold.
- It’s clear you don’t remember much. After some desperate prompting, you don’t know her name, or the names of your co-workers. She sees a vague spark of recollection at the mention of SDN, but other than that, your memory was completely blank.
- She didn’t blame you… who could? But when she looks down at you, seeing nothing left of the mind and life she loves, it’s not a good feeling.
- Sensing this, Blazer pulls Coupé from duty for a while, allowing her to just be Janelle with you, even if you didn’t recognize that version of her, either.
- She goes about your typical routine as normal, and you’re trying your best to keep up. The door’s passcodes feel foreign on your fingers, your supposed favourite mug too heavy in your hands, her name new on your lips.
- She tries to ignore it, wanting to treat you as normally as possible. If she’d been in your shoes, that’s what she would have wanted.
- Days stretch into weeks, and Janelle starts to lose hope. If you’ve truly lost those memories, the growth of you both as people and as a couple, the love and joy and loss of your life together, she doesn’t know if she can stay.
- And you don’t blame her.
- But one day, after another explanation of your routine, something domestic and slow, you feel something return.
- It’s like a ghost of a memory, burrowing itself into the back of your head, but it’s there. It’s familiar, and it’s yours.
- When you tell her, she looks like you’d knocked the wind out of her, before rushing to nearly tackle you as she wraps her arms around you.
- It takes longer than either of you wanted, but slowly, Janelle starts to see the missing parts of you piece themselves back together.
- Some selfish part of her wants to argue that they let you keep the devices. She has hers, and they aren’t much of a nuisance other than in looks. It’d be something shared, a burden carried by two people instead of one.
- But she knows they need to be removed, for your safety and the safety of everyone around you.
- And so she’s pacing outside of the room you’re in, waiting for some sign that Shroud hadn’t put some sadistic failsafe into the glowing red parasites that they’d pulled out of you, hoping that she’d get to see you alive and with her once again.
- But when you do wake up, it’s not somethimg heartfelt. Her stomach drops as you look at her blankly, brow furrowed.
- They call it Retrograde Amnesia, and that the devices themselves seemed to have tampered with your memories altogether.
- And she can’t stop staring at you, as you’re watching her like a stranger. Like you hadn’t been there beside her in the highs and lows of both of your lives.
- You’re cleared medically, sent home without a second thought, and she can’t decide whether she wants to stay in your arms until you remember something or keep her distance.
- Eventually, however, she opts for a happy medium.
- She shows up to your place, holding takeout from your favourite restaurant, with a tired smile and a lot to tell you.
- It becomes a daily tradition. The two of you alternate who makes or brings the food, since you’re still rediscovering your likes and dislikes, but you both spend evening after evening eating on the couch while she rants to you about your day, or tells you stories about past dates and missions.
- Slowly but surely, you start to understand more. It’s not memories yet, but it’s something. A vague knowledge of the woman she’s talking about, someone who loved her deeply and lived a life that you never could have imagined.
- Until one day, with a box of noodles in your hand, something comes back to you mid-bite. It’s simple and easy, cigarette smoke and cars rushing by, but Courtney’s expression seems to brighten immediately at the knowledge that something came back.
- It’s slow work, prying up memory after memory between stories and rambling, but you’re willing to keep trying. And she couldn’t be happier.
- Blazer is tense, as they’re operating to remove the damage Shroud had done.
- No, not tense, but wound tighter than ever before, like a rubber band pulled too taut. Like she could snap at any moment, hurting or causing some kind of damage.
- That is, until they tell her you’re awake.
- You’re groggy when she enters the room. Rubbing your eyes and looking around in confusion, she assumes it’s just disorientation.
- So, she moves to take your hand in hers to calm you. But as you pull away, something shifts in the air. Something is deeply wrong.
- Quickly, it comes to light that you don’t recognize her. You have no idea what she’s doing here, or what you’re doing there either.
- And Blazer is livid. Not at you— never at you— but at Shroud, for doing something so insignificant in the face of world domination, but so painful on a personal level.
- She stays by your side as much as she can, despite you not knowing much about her anymore. She realizes how comforting the amulet form seems to be to you, how you lean against her when overwhelmed or squeeze her arm when you have a question you’re a bit tentative about asking.
- And so, she doesn’t risk taking it off around you. Even if it means nothing to you in terms of memories, if it makes you feel safe, she’s doing it nonetheless.
- Mandy really tries everything to rattle something free in that head of yours. She’s researching all night, looking for old journals or family photos, even searching through your shared photos for some kind of clue.
- You’re watching this powerful, incredible woman who seems to know you get so unbelievably frustrated and overworked, trying to find something to bring back the memories you’re supposed to have, and you can’t help but feel saddened by it.
- Eventually, you run into her in the middle of the night. She’s seated on the couch, still in that superhero costume, amulet and everything, poring over her laptop and dozens of photo albums she’d borrowed from who she said was your parents.
- You slip onto the cushion beside her, murmuring about how she should rest, take off the fighting boots and get some sleep.
- And she sighs, knowing you won’t recognize who she is without the necklace, either, but warns you anyways.
- But when she’s back to her real self, trademarked blonde hair and corporate attitude shed like a jacket she was sick of, she sees something shift in your eyes.
- And you mouth her name. Just once.
- You blink, repeating it again. Slowly, like your mind was gradually gaining speed, you catch up on things, piece by piece, until you know the woman sitting in front of her.
- And her eyes brim with tears as she launches herself at you, laughing in relief.
- Prism is used to being known. She’s familiar with the recognition in people’s eyes, and how fans cheer at the sight of her.
- But you, staring at her like she was someone brand new, was jarring.
- Those implants had been for mind-control, but without them, doctors worried for the part of your mind that was left.
- In all honestly, she had no clue what to do. It was awkward and painful to be around each other, seeing the struggle to place her face in your eyes every time she came by.
- And so, she did what she did best.
- She’d sing to you, softly and gently, contrasting her usually style of music but paying it no mind. Even if it didn’t accomplish anything, you seemed to like it enough to ask her to do it. And god, was she happy to oblige.
- Once you’re let out of the hospital, you’re back at home, and she sees the turmoil in your eyes as you’re stuck picking apart the shards of a life you’re supposed to know, and she knows attempting to piece it back together is a daunting task.
- So she spends that time with you. Helps you organize, directs you to where everything is— you confess that it’s like being a guest at your own party, and she laughs quietly and agrees
- One evening, while she’s hanging out at the table, swiping through her camera roll to empty up some storage, you join her.
- You’re quiet, mostly, just watching over her shoulder, until you start pointing to people in the videos, asking about them.
- The two of you wind up spending the entire night scrolling through clip after clip. Watching your eyes, she sees you find some of them happy, some unbelievably hilarious, and some frustrating. When your brows pinch, she knows it’s time to move on to the next one.
- That is, until you point one out. It’s a karaoke night a few months back, with you two and Flambae, when your eyes go as wide as dinner plates.
- You stumble over the title of the song you sang with her that night, not the one in the video but one that you had to be there to know.
- And from there, you start to figure it out. She’s egging you on, showing you photos, screenshots of tickets, signs, whatever gets your mind working.
- And by the time the sun comes up, you’re more of yourself than you’d been in weeks, and she’s overjoyed, although definitely as exhausted as you are.
- You’ve been out for days. Usually, she’d give you the grace of a long recovery period, but… something felt wrong.
- They’d managed to get all of that augment shit out of you, although it had taken way too long in surgery for them to fully untangle the connection from your spine and nervous system.
- Your eyes open hours later, but, again, something feels wrong.
- And her worries are confirmed when you ask who she is. And— as a follow up question— what the hell had happened,
- She’s not surprised, but it’s a bit disheartening, really. You know absolutely nothing. Not about her, or about the team, or most of your life.
- And it breaks her heart to see you so confused.
- When it’s made sure of that you’re not going to drop dead, they let you go home, provided that she help you out for a few days, and she can barely watch as you wander around your place like it’s some escape room, like the right switch or button might take you back to somewhere you recognize.
- And when it’s clear that you’ve got some learning to do, she sees you flop into the couch, lying there and staring at the ceiling like it owes you answers.
- Right there and then, she holds out her hand. She knows you’re still a little wobbly when walking, so when you accept her grip on your own, she holds you close to her.
- With a quick warning, she portals the two of you out of your living room, and down to the city street. You’re shocked, a little disoriented maybe, which is so unbelievably understandable that you’re surprised she’s not mad at you for puking.
- She begins to guide you around town, taking you to spots the two of you frequented, buying treats at some to try and remind you. By the end of the night, you’d gotten a meal, but no recolelction.
- But Mal wouldn’t stop trying. Not when she could see you so close to some kind of revelation. Everything would get better if she could get her girl back, the one who patterned feather-light kisses down her jaw and always shot her a compliment coming into the office each day.
- She just needed you to know that girl.
- She kept at it, taking you to a different spot day after day. Bars that you frequented, hangout spots like rooftops and patios, even a few spots in the inferno-infested alternate planes that she’d taken you to once or twice.
- And with every failed attempt, the flame within her dimmed, bit by bit.
- Mal’s cockiness wore off. She missed you, truly, and she only wanted to see you look at her again, like you really remembered her.
- After a particularly unsuccessful evening, she sighed, leaning against a wall with her tail smacking against it in frustration, when you gasped softly.
- Something about the sight of her like that, pissed off and standing in an alleyway, had driven something into your mind. You saw flashes of magenta light, a sword cutting through the air, and then that tail. You felt the sensation of it wrapping around your arm like it was happening in real time.
- And from there, the floodgates opened. She held you throughout all of it, urging you to tell her what you saw, what you felt or knew, until your gaze digging into her skin felt different.
