long live :: three of cups :: the best people in life are free
Nora and her friends and a night out that, shockingly, does not end in a fistfight.
“Literally nothing you’ve ever done after the phrase hold my beer has ended well.” Nora quirks her eyebrows at her friend, then slams back her shot of Armali White Label.
“Oh,” Alle says, rolling her eyes, “like you’re a paragon of good drunk decision making skills.” She licks the line of salt on her hand and swallows her shot of tequila. She makes a face, bites down hard into the lime, and spits it out into the bucket sitting on the bar.
The Elephant Arms is not a classy establishment. But that’s why they like it.
Rachel twirls on her stool and leans back, resting her elbows on the sticky wooden bar. ”Neither of you are going to win gold stars for Wise Choices While Inebriated.”
Nora laughs and gestures for the bartender to bring them another round. ”Yeah, sure, says Miss Danced On This Very Bar.” She taps on the stained wood.
“Didn’t say I was going to win one,” Rachel says. She spies three strangers headed toward them and narrows her eyes in warning. When they don’t stop, she sighs in exasperation. ”Heads up, incoming bullshit.”
“Hang on,” Alle says, leaning across Nora so she can get a better look at Rachel. ”When did you dance on the bar?” She abruptly sits back down and glares at the man who was about to take her seat and offer his lap instead. ”Back off, buddy.”
“Aw, come on.”
Nora watches with a grin as Alle subtly opens and closes her fist. The air tightens with the beginnings of a biotic field. Nora settles her own weight in a way that will let her easily throw a punch and then grabs an empty bottle. One of the downsides to being half of her squad’s ranged offensive is that her main skill set isn’t particularly suited to tight quarters. One of the upsides is that she is very, very good at throwing things. The Elephant Arms averages four brawls a weekend. Their N class is usually involved in at least two. Vega’s not thrilled about it, to say the least, but that tends to be a morning problem.
“Couple weeks ago. I think you were in jail somewhere in the Traverse.” Rachel half-twists to look at the man next to her. “Seriously. What part of this,” she gestures at the three of them, who have been doing their damndest to ignore any attention from the men, “indicates interest?”
A biotic brawler who’s had too much to drink, a sniper grenadier whose last name alone orders station security to back off, and a combat medic with an encyclopedic knowledge of pressure points walk into a bar.
Three N3 soldiers walk into a bar.
A bartender who has absolutely had it with the frequency he has to replace chairs when any of this particular N class walks into his bar.
He pushes a button beside the ice dispenser.
It isn’t six seconds before three bouncers – two krogan and a turian – haul the men away so fast their toes barely scrape the floor.
“You’re no fun,” Nora says.
“When’d you get new muscle?” Alle says, tilting her head, gazing appreciatively at the retreating turian. He turns around to take up his post at the bar’s entrance. She winks at him.
Even across the darkened bar, the blue flush to his face is obvious. He abruptly looks away. Alle grins.
“Please don’t,” the bartender says, wiping down the bar, though the stickiness has permanently soaked into the wood. “Last thing I need is a security guard pining over a soldier. And,” he turns to Nora, “I’m plenty of fun. I just barely finished rebuilding all the furniture after the last time you three picked a fight is all.”
“We did not ‘pick a fight,’“ Rachel clarifies, spinning back around. “Caroline politely told the guy she wasn’t interested, he and his friends pressed the issue, and a little bit of force cleared things right up.”
Nora snorts into her shot glass, glad she hadn’t yet taken the drink. A little bit of force is a slight understatement. Rachel sucker punched the drell hitting on her girlfriend, Nora took on his krogan buddy, Alle went one-v-three against a trio of surly batarians who looked at her the wrong way, the energy escalated very quickly, and trivia night turned into a full-on bar brawl that spilled out onto the promenade. 12 hours passed before station security realized they had a handful of N3 soldiers in custody and let them go.
He sighs a long-suffering sigh and tosses the towel into the sink behind him. “I should’ve banned your entire class years ago.”
“You would’ve gone under within six months,” Alle says.
Nora points in agreement as she swallows her shot.
The bartender narrows his dark eyes for a moment, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge the truth. “Another round?”
or, my anxiety is Doing Things Again please validate me and also now I want pie
Nora stares up at the night sky. It's not really the night sky: it's the Citadel's day-night cycle holographically projected onto the forcefield separating the Presidium’s residential zone from the zero-g skycar highways above, but it's after midnight and there's a pretty good approximation of the Orion Nebula overhead. A few stars twinkle through the shimmering gases. She shrinks into her sweatshirt - Presidium Prep, now relegated to laundry day - tugging the sleeves over her hands.
The balcony brightens and then dims again as the door opens and shuts behind someone.
"You're making your bodyguard nervous, sitting out here like this," Zaeed says, dropping onto the couch beside her.
Nora presses her lips together. She still hasn't decided whether to be mad at Teyla for calling him. She wonders if Mom left instructions: in case of emergency, call her grandfather.
"Turian ambassador and her staff," Nora points to the building directly across the courtyard, "volus councilor and his staff," the building to the left, "asari cultural delegation and economic commission," the building to the right, "and other people of galactic importance," she gestures generally. "This is the most secure balcony on the Citadel."
"She's pacing."
Her eyes narrow and she snaps her focus to him. "I had a panic attack, Zaeed, I didn't suddenly get stupid." Being an easy target isn't the reason for Teyla's pacing, but it probably isn't helping. Terra Firma's gotten loud again and they've never much liked her family.
"Didn't say you did," he says calmly, staring out at the trees. "Said the krogan was pacing." Leaves rustle in the slight breeze caused by the station's air circulation.
Nora forces herself to take a slow, deep breath. One doesn't settle her, so she takes another. And a third. After five, she feels calm enough that she maybe won't snap at her grandfather just for caring. "Sorry," she says quietly. She draws her knees to her chest, resting her heels on the couch cushion.
Zaeed bumps his shoulder into hers. "You alright?"
"I can breathe," she dodges the question.
He makes a quiet noise of approval. "That's progress."
Sighing, Nora looks back up at the sky. At some level, she knows staying here while Mom went to Sur'Kesh for a few days and Dad's on Palaven was the right call. Her meds are working (...mostly), she has Alle and a few other friends at school, and her grandparents are a fifteen-minute transit ride away. She's seventeen and, panic attacks or no, she doesn't need to tag along with her parents all the time anymore. But right now, she deeply regrets insisting that she'd be fine alone.
She clearly isn't.
Everything goes a little soft around the edges and warmth starts to creep back into her fingers. Fucking finally, Nora thinks. The entire point of emergency meds is that they're supposed to kick in quickly, not half an hour later when she's already calmed down; she adds that to the list of things to talk about with her therapist this week. She idly twirls a strand of hair around her finger and closes her eyes as the breeze gently blows across her face.
"There's a crack in everything," Zaeed says after a while.
She opens one eye. She heard him say that once before, to Mom, when Nora was much younger and, in hindsight, fairly certain she was supposed to be in bed and not creeping around her grandparents' house looking for the cat. When he doesn't immediately continue, she opens the other eye. "There has to be a second half to that."
"That's how the light gets in."
Of all the reactions Nora anticipated in the split second before it happens, bursting into tears was pretty far down the list. But that's what happens.
Zaeed settles his arm around her as she rests her forehead on her knees and cries.
It’s not the same as earlier, when her panic formed a lump so heavy and big in the back of her throat that it hurt, so badly she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to breathe again. This is quieter. Tired. She leans her head on Zaeed’s shoulder and wipes at her cheeks even as new tears fall.
Good air in, bad air out, she hears in Mom’s voice even millions of light years away. Good air in, inhale and hold it for a moment, bad air out, exhale. Repeat over and over and over again until you don’t have to anymore. Good air in, bad air out.
There’s a crack in everything. She likes that. She certainly feels full of cracks lately. Cracks and crevasses and fissures and fractures, each one of them ready to let the light in again.
After a while, her breathing settles and her tears subside, leaving her just exhausted. Empty. She’d been trying so hard to keep it in, trying to keep up the facade that she’s fine, Mom, I promise, that she’d forgotten how good it feels when she’s just empty. Nothing left.
She stays within the protective half-embrace of her grandfather for a bit longer, enough time for the sky projection to rotate so the nebula now shifts blue instead of purple. She runs her fingers through her hair, trying to straighten out the mess as best she can. A few swipes of her fingers underneath her eyes and even most of the smudged eyeliner is gone. Almost human. “Any chance you brought snacks?” she asks, voice quiet and hoarse as she sits up.
Zaeed smiles. “No, but I brought someone who can make snacks,” he gestures to the window behind them.
Nora stretches around and smiles at the sight of her grandmother working in the kitchen. She spies peaches on the cutting board and there’s a pie already cooling on the counter. Time passes funny when her brain stalls out; she supposes she's been out here for a lot longer than she thinks. “Thanks,” she says, giving him a watery smile.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs, bringing her in for a hug. He kisses her forehead. “It’s gonna feel like shit for a good long while, but you’ll be okay.”
Nora nods. Healing isn’t instant, Mom said a few weeks ago, talking Nora down from another panic attack. She just hadn’t mentioned the bit about how much it sucks. Good to know it’s supposed to hurt this much, she supposes.
There’s a crack in everything.
The nebula shifts colors again, from blue to green this time. Nora leans in for one more hug. “Let’s get some pie.”
this night ain’t for the faint of heart (norasquad)
scenes from a mission going mildly awry, or, “the author has seen Leverage and the Ocean’s franchise way too many times in her life and has zero regrets”
"Hurry up," Alle says. "Guard’s coming."
"I can’t hurry any faster than your stupid program," Nora hisses, snapping her fingers at the drive, as if that will encourage it to hack faster.
"Hide. Now," Alle says, at the same time as the distinct noise of a guard clearing his throat.
"Who are you?" the guard says, shifting his grip on his assault rifle.
Nora turns so the drive is hidden behind her back. She blinks. "Health inspector."
The guard looks her up and down, taking in the slinky black dress, and the four-inch heels, and the red lipstick. "Not dressed like any health inspector I’ve ever seen."
"Spot inspection," she says. "I’m supposed to blend, and you’re having this wonderful party." She flutters her eyelashes as best she can, and ignores the distinctive sound of Alle trying - and failing - to hold back laughter.
His eyebrows furrow, and his eyes sweep side to side, as if pointing out the total lack of party surrounding the corner he’s found her in.
"I got a little lost," she says sheepishly, giving him a little innocent shrug. The dull background hum suddenly disappears from her earpiece, and Nora swallows back a little huff of amusement at her best friend laughing hard enough to put herself on mute.
The drive chooses that moment to beep in completion, and Nora coughs, hoping to cover it up. As smoothly and subtly as she can, she tugs it out of the port behind her and palms it.
The guard sighs. "This way," he gestures with his rifle.
Nora smiles and, once his back is turned, snaps the drive back into her watch band. "I’m gonna need a health inspector profile," she mutters as she follows the guard down the hallway.
"On it."
“And we need to have a talk about the incompatibility of infiltration missions with tech that beeps.”
“Maybe we table that for the ride back, yeah?”
The guard leads her back to the party and then points down another hall. "Kitchen’s down that way."
"Thank you," she smiles, and heads in the direction he pointed. She bumps into another patron, mumbles an apology, and waits another few steps before she looks at the tablet she slipped from the patron’s hand. A personal tablet, but it’ll work as a prop. "Got me a cover yet?" she asks, looking back to see that the guard’s still watching her. She gives him a little wave.
"Nora Vincent, senior inspector with the Illium Board of Health. It’s only good enough for an initial search, so don’t do anything that would get them to actually call the Board."
"You mean like my job?" Nora mutters, slipping down the hallway to the kitchen.
"Hey, I told you to hide."
Nora grits her teeth. "It was the end of the hallway, Al." Taking half a moment to center herself, she takes a breath and pushes open the doors to the kitchen.
***
Carlos feigns an important call, apologizes to the businessmen he’s been conversing with, and turns away. "Rabinowitz, how we doing on the target?"
"Facial recognition hasn’t picked him up. Neither has the ID scanner. Doors close in five minutes, I don’t think he’s coming."
"He RSVP’ed," Carlos says. "We tagged his ship in orbit, and him at the docks. He’s here."
"He’s on the planet," Alle says, "doesn’t mean he’s at this party. Heads up Torrini, lady in the green dress is making a bee-line for you again."
Sighing, Carlos walks away, hoping to blend into the crowd; he’s been dodging her all night, certain that he’s going to end up cornered for the rest of the evening if he lets her get even one word in. "Little help," he hisses, leading her past the security station Micah’s working.
"Name’s Anastasia Cartwright. Only talent seems to be being richer than god."
Micah steps between Anastasia and Carlos. "Ms. Cartwright, my apologies, there’s a security concern. I need you to come with me."
"Oh," she says, looking longingly after Carlos. "Nothing serious, I hope. I was hoping to speak with that young man over there."
"Come with me, please," he says, leading her away from Carlos and to what he hopes is a security office. "Three more minutes, and he’s not coming," he whispers into their comms.
***
"Thank you," Nora says, "now the refrigeration, please?" She makes a few taps on the tablet, making sure to keep the screen - and the health inspection checklist she found on the extranet five seconds before approaching one of the junior chefs - out of sight of the supervisor leading her around the kitchen. "Any luck on the item?"
"Nothing," Carlos says. "This place is full of rich people shit, but none of it’s pinging the scanner."
"Okay, how is it that we spent a month prepping this mission and literally none of the things we need have shown up?" Alle grumbles.
"No plan survives contact with the enemy?" Carlos suggests.
"This plan hasn’t made contact with anything," Alle points out.
"Uhm," Nora says, noticing an odd package in the back corner of the walk-in refrigerator. She focuses on it, and the HUD in her lenses flashes red. She shifts so the camera masquerading as a jewel in her necklace can get a good shot. "One of these things is not like the other."
"Sorry?" the supervisor says.
She clears her throat. "Oh, just that this isn’t like the other refrigeration units I’ve looked at this week," she says weakly. "Bigger."
Three nearly-identical snorts over the comms. Nora turns away from the supervisor to glare at the ceiling.
“It’s in the fridge? No way you can sneak that in at a party like this, someone on the kitchen staff has to be involved,” Carlos says.
“Second shelf in the corner,” Nora whispers, “I can’t loop back without tipping someone off.” She feigns interest in the freezer unit, checks off a few boxes on her tablet, and peers into the meat storage unit the supervisor seems particularly proud of. “That vial can not leave this party with anyone but us.”
“On it,” Alle says, followed by a thump and the noise of moving things around in a small space.
“No,” Nora hisses, “you’re the exit strategy.” She coughs lightly, waving her apologies at the supervisor as they move on to dry storage. “We need you in that shuttle.”
“You’re out of position, Rabinowitz is burned from the security briefing, and Torrini’ll throw about a million red flags in the kitchen with that suit he’s wearing.”
“That problem won’t be one in about ten seconds. Excuse me, sir?”
Another thump, this one dull and heavy, and one Nora is very familiar with. She clenches her back teeth. “Tell me you only knocked him out.”
“Of course,” Carlos scoffs, almost offended, “I paid attention in that meeting.” More muffled sounds, and Nora wonders just how weirdly her life turned that she now recognizes the sound of an unconscious body being undressed and redressed in a closet. “Shit, this guy’s only a server. I need an ID card to get that far into the kitchen.”
“On it,” Nora whispers. She bumps into one of the sous chefs, apologizes, and palms the ID card she lifted from his pocket. And Vega thought nothing came of the three months she spent undercover with a smuggling ring on Omega. “Kitchen entrance, three minutes.”
“Doors are closed,” Micah says, “our guy’s not here.”
“The vial’s here. Why isn’t he?”
“A fantastic question which we will deal with later,” Nora hisses. “Everything looks in order,” she directs her focus back to the supervisor. “All I need is the transition point for your servers.”
She takes a cursory glance at the counter, pretends to examine the hands of an outgoing server, and nods. “Thanks for your cooperation. You’ll have the results in a few days, I’ll get out of your hair.”
On her way out, she brushes up against Carlos, easily slipping him the access card. She waits until she’s in the crowd to give orders. “Get the vial and meet us at extract. There’s a reason he didn’t show. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not good.”
***
Alle sets the shuttle down, hovering about a foot off the ground, and opens the door. The external cam shows Nora rounding the corner, shoes in hand and Alle decloaks the ship and starts preflight so it’ll be mostly finished by the time Micah and Carlos on board and they need to book it.
“Why are we running?” Alle asks.
Nora doesn’t say anything, so Alle turns and follows the thumb Nora’s jerked over her shoulder while she catches her breath.
“Yeah,” Alle says, “that’s sure worth avoiding.” She directs her attention away from the mansion and the flames that now engulf it, and back to the checklist. This mission doesn’t exist, she can fill out the non-essential bits once they’re safely in another system.
She hears the thud of the other two jumping aboard, followed by the thump of Micah’s fist on the door control, and lifts off before the door’s even closed. Pressure pushes on her ears and she takes one hand off the controls to plug her nose and pop her ears. She cloaks them again just in time to pass three - no, four - emergency shuttles with lights and sirens blaring.
They’re out of the gravity well and into space before Alle turns around to look at her team. “So,” she says as the autopilot takes them toward the relay, “why was the building on fire?”
“That wasn’t our fault,” Carlos says.
Alle nods. “Good to know. So why was the building on fire?”
“Lantaag was there,” Nora says, “he’s got some freaky black market tech that can change his appearance.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
Nora nods. “He caught up with Torrini by the spinach - ”
“Wondered why you were covered in,” Micah gestures at the vegetable detritus staining Carlos’ stolen uniform.
“ - didn’t take too kindly to us stealing the bioweapon he paid a couple trillion credits for,” Nora continues past him, “and there may or may not have been a firefight on the way out that may or may not have had some goons with shitty aim hitting a gas fireplace instead of me.”
***
Vega raises an eyebrow. “May or may not?” He puts the report down on his desk.
“There was some debate in the shuttle regarding improper use of hand grenades in a residential combat environment,” Nora says.
He sighs and folds his hands over his stomach. “Between you, me, and the wall, did you guys blow up the building?”
“The detonator was on a timer. Everyone was out of range before it blew.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, Vega takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Nora stands, pulling up straight at attention. “Yes, sir.”
She’s at the door before he says anything else.
“Did any of this mission go according to plan?”
She turns back to him. “Well, we got the bioweapon. And, as a bonus, Torrini got a socialite’s number.”
He blinks. “Intentionally, or...?”
“She was very persistent. Stopped him while we were running from the burning building.” Nora doesn’t even try to hold back the smirk; Carlos’ annoyance at that number has been an endless source of entertainment for the past few days. Pegasus landed this afternoon, and Nora gives it about an hour before Deck steals his omnitool and messages Anastasia.
Vega stares at her for a moment, clearly unsure what to do with that. “You’re getting very good at not answering questions.”
“Nicely done,” Olivia says proudly. She dodges a pirate and throws a frag grenade into the mess headed her way.
“Thanks!” Nora says. “You should…not be there.”
An understatement. She could missile the nonsense that’s about to be on her face, but that’s not nearly as fun. She fires off a clip of inferno ammo into the mech, tops it off with a concussive shot and another grenade, and then runs very fast in the other direction.
“So what was this bet about, anyway?” Olivia asks, ducking into cover. This is a warm-up, practice for the real thing next week.
“Quentus said something stupid.” Three shots boom across the base.
She’d gathered that much. Her eldest son is caring and kind and protective, but an absolute utter idiot when it comes to his brain-mouth filter. “Can you be more specific?” She switches to her Black Widow and pops out of cover, taking out three pirate snipers.
A barrage of arc grenades crackles into the spot Olivia just vacated. The mess that was crowding in disappears into a killstreak. She switches back to her Revenant.
Nora drops down a ladder into cover beside Olivia and blows her supply pylon, killing a captain in the process. She sets up another pylon beside them, and offers Olivia two of the grenade tokens. “There was an inebriated comment about turians and superior eye sight.” Three more headshots.
Olivia programs the tokens for inferno grenades and sticks them on her belt, then unloads two clips into the bastion. “He’s done matches with you, right?” She seems to recall something about jet boots and an illegal pistol.
“Yep,” Nora says, shooting down the final captain. “Like I said. Quentus said something stupid.”
The arena drone calls out the wave ten objective - devices.
“Oh, why fucking this,” Nora groans.
“I’ll get the button,” Olivia says, already pushing off of cover. “You go kill things.”
“Fun fact, they changed the enemy spawns. It’s now three respawning HYDRA mechs on this wave.”
Olivia hears an explosion, and then the kill feed fills up with the results of Nora’s missile, followed by their fourth killstreak medal. She crouches beside the device and activates it, then looks up at the glowing blue outline of her daughter climbing up the tower. “You and I have different definitions of fun.”
“Didn’t you once run an entire ravager mission with the Predator? On a dare? Duck. Now.”
Olivia ducks, three Valiant shots hit something beside her, and the assassin’s cloak deactivates as it dies. “Thank you.” The device darkens and Olivia sprints for the next one. “And Vega needs to stop telling you stories.”
“Wasn’t Vega.” Her grin is audible even over comms, even through the mess that is three mechs firing missiles all at once.
Olivia wonders what possible context Garrus would have for sharing that particular bad idea with their daughter, but her wonder is abruptly cut short when she catches the edge of a grenade that takes down her shields, and most of her health. A captain punches her a split second before she can hit an ops pack, and she falls over, temporarily dead.
She sighs heavily, waits a few seconds for everything to lose interest in her body, and then revives herself. She throws four inferno grenades into the pack before crouching beside the second device.
Another medal pops up: Nora Vakarian - 35 headshots. A surge of pride rises in her; she knows Nora's good, but it’s different seeing it in person. “That bet didn’t happen to include headshots, did it?” She got that same medal at the beginning of wave nine. At least 70 headshots between the two of them, and while Garrus may be a sniper, Quentus is not.
Again with the audible grin. “It sure did.”
Olivia smiles, and heads for the next device. She wonders if she can make a side bet, just with Garrus. She’s two headshots ahead of him, maybe they’ll need a tiebreaker afterward.
“Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!” for Nora
Asking about Nora is pretty much an immediate +10 gratitude, honestly
***
Olivia tugs her sleeves down over her handsand kicks snow off half of the top step before sitting down. She remembers whenQuentus and Nico first saw snow, that first year when they brought them back toEarth to visit her mom.
Quentus had started to panic - and sherealized nearly too late that falling snow probably looked a lot like ash toher seven year-old. She’d sat with him on the porch, building an army of minisnowmen together while he convinced himself that snow was perfectly safe. But Nicofell in love with it, though the cold bothered his leg a little, and spent theday jumping around in snowdrifts with Garrus and Zaeed; she’ll never forget thesight of Zaeed Massani, grizzled one-eyed merc, teaching her son how to maketurian-shaped snow angels.
Nora shrieks, drawing Olivia’s attention back to the present, as Quentus catches her and dumpssnow down the back of her jacket. She stands perfectly still, shoulders up byher ears, as snow falls down her back. “I hate you,” she says in asmall, resigned voice.
“Run faster,” he teases.
Olivia smiles as Nora just glares at her brother for a moment.
Nora scrunches up her nose and sticks hertongue out at him, and then does exactly what Quentus said. She scoops up snow and sprintsacross the yard, packing it into a snowball as she runs.
Quentus does the same, running in theopposite direction, but human hands are far better suited to making snowballsthan turian hands. Nora stops, spins, and throws the snowball at his backbefore Quentus even has his half-packed. The snowball explodes on his carapace.
Nora grins, and then ducks out of sightbehind a tree.
Olivia looks up as the porch door opens.“There you are,” she says as her youngest son joins her. “How’sthe knee?”
Nico shrugs, brushes off the remaining snowfrom the step, and then winces as he carefully sits down beside her.
“That good, huh?” She bumps hisshoulder with hers. She estimates she has about another fifteen minutes beforeher own leg starts to bother her. All the cybernetics in the galaxy, all thecombined Cerberus and Alliance tech, and still the prosthetic aches in thecold.
“Hannah’s looking for a heatingpad,” he says, stretching his leg out in front of him. “Who’swinning?”
She squints out over the yard. Nora’s nowhereto be seen, and Quentus has two snowballs at the ready while he searches forher. “Hard to tell,” she says. She tilts her head up to the sky andsticks out her tongue, catching a few flakes.
There’s a commotion by the trees. Quentussquawks indignantly as a shower of snow shakes down on top of him. Laughing, Nora falls out of the tree, tucking into aperfect somersault as she hits the deep snow, and runs back across the yard.
Olivia nods. Nora’s not had a great year, butstarting a new school, and having her brother home for a few months, has donewonders. It’s nice to see her smiling again. “She’s doing a lotbetter,” she tells him. Nico’s been deployed for most of the last year; asawful as it was watching her daughter dissolve into an anxiety attack thatrequired emergency medical attention, she wonders how much harder it was forhim to watch his sister go through it all from afar, to hear about it in emailsand vidcalls.
“Good,” he says, and draws her intoa sideways hug.
Olivia smiles and hugs him back. He’s a goodkid, all three of them are. Her omnitool beeps and she sits up to check it. Hersmile widens - Garrus is finally on a transport here; it’s a private Counciltransport, so he’ll be here in the morning. She sends back a quick see yousoon and returns her attention to the snowball fight.
A snowball flies out from around the cornerof the house, smacking into Nora’s shoulders. She turns around, indignant, andshoots her best attempt at a death glare toward Zaeed as he strolls into thebackyard.
Olivia sizes up the situation - Nora’sspeedy, and climbs trees, but Quentus is sneaky and Zaeed has wicked aim.
Nora comes to the same conclusion at the sametime. “Don’t you dare throw that - goddammit, Zaeed!” shelaughs as another snowball explodes against her leg. “Mom, help!”
But Olivia’s one step ahead of her andlaunches two snowballs in rapid succession - one hitting Zaeed in the shoulder,the other hitting Quentus square in the chest. “Crap,” she sayswhen the two men turn their attentions to her.
“Yeah,” Nico says. “You shouldrun.”
“You just don’t want to get caught inthe crossfire,” she grins, standing up. She brushes off her pants.
He shakes his head, smiling. “I reallydon’t.”
She catches Nora’s eye and jerks her headtoward the bushes at the side of the yard, and then ducks as Quentus throws asnowball at her. He misses by a mile, hitting the house instead. Olivia pausesbefore she starts running. Quentus is not a sniper, but she knows he has betteraim than that.
Quentus shrugs. “I didn’t want to hitNico.”
“Thank you,” Nico says, at the sametime as Nora shouts, “Lousy excuse!” from behind the bushes.
“Are you in this or what, Shepard?”Zaeed asks, in cover behind a tree.
Olivia responds by throwing a snowball at abranch above him, so that it explodes and rains snow down upon his head. Zaeedsputters and pops out around the tree to retaliate, but she’s already halfwayacross the yard to join her daughter.
"Oh god," Nora groans when the map loads around them. "Why are we here." "Random number generator was bound to screw us eventually," Micah says, jogging alongside her. Nora climbs the ladder to a hidden sniper perch atop one of the makeshift buildings. "I hate this goddamn map," she grumbles. As Micah climbs up beside her, she sets up her supply pylon. "You've mentioned that one or fifty times," Alle teases, halfway across the map. "It's so stupid, this moon is worthless, why does anyone even want it?" She scopes in and nails three cannibals between the eyes. Biotic explosions echo across the open map - Alle and Carlos have found themselves a spawn point. "It was a strategic - get, ugh!" Carlos struggles with a husk, flinging it away from him. "The moon was a strategic location during the war." Nora knocks a marauder's shields down so Alle can grab it over the box. "No it wasn't." "Not according to the Alliance," Micah says. He fires his Black Widow, disintegrating a husk into chunks of gore and circuitry. Nora glares at him, not unkindly. It's apparently Pick On Nora Day. He shrugs, feigning innocence, and Nora sticks her tongue out. She was due, anyway. "Thanks, man. Now I'm covered in husk guts." Carlos stands with his hands on his hips and glares toward the two snipers. Micah reloads, and grins. "Any time." "This was a thoroughly unimportant moon," Nora continues. She hates this map. She hates this map more than Ghost. She hates this map more than Ghost in the rain. Well. Maybe not more than Ghost in the acid rain. But definitely more than Ghost itself. "Says who?" "Don't feed the troll, Vakarian," Alle says, in a little singsong voice. "Rude," Carlos accuses as the wave ends. Grinning, Alle tosses him an equally-rude gesture. Nora blows her supply pylon and follows Micah down off the roof to their other favorite spot. Not so much favorite as second spot that is not completely terrible. Fucking Condor. "Says my dad," she retorts. Evidently she is going to be feeding the troll. She throws three arc grenades into the herd of oncoming husks and cannibals. "Senior turian reaper advisor during the war? And, uh, current turian councilor?" "Don't feed the troll," Micah whispers, repeating Alle's words of wisdom. Nora clenches her teeth. It's the principle of the matter. Besides, Carlos gets irrationally angry about the misuse of air quotes, Alle will rant for days if someone is wrong on the extranet about her favorite show, Micah hates the Dilinaga transit station layout and complains every time they have to transfer through it. Condor is her thing. "Okay, fair point, but also -" A banshee scream reverberates through the arena speakers. "What the fuck why is there a banshee on wave goddamn two!" Carlos releases an incoherent stream of cursing as he runs very fast in the opposite direction. "Because Condor sucks," Nora says, laying down cover fire for him. Carlos runs around the corner and leans up against the building, taking a moment to breathe. He looks up at her. "Wasn't actually arguing that part." She glares at him, and throws an arc grenade at his head; they've turned off friendly fire, but the electrical crackle will be sufficiently annoying. "I hate you." "You love me." "None of us are going to love you if you don't move your ass," Micah says, pointing at the approaching banshee. "Uh, yeah - we should move, too," Nora agrees. She vaults the railing and takes off, running toward Alle, with the two men behind her. She sets up a new pylon behind a rock. The other one explodes. "Seriously?" Alle says, detonating a large biotic explosion off a brute. Nora blinks at the kill feed. Nora Vakarian - Banshee [supply pylon] She takes a screenshot of the feed before focusing back on the fight. That was hilarious, but she still hates this map.
James looks at the four of them. Chimera’s a good squad - great, really, though all three squads have exceeded his expectations more than what he ever imagined - but they tend to go a little unorthodox.
Unorthodox’ll save your life, he remembers Shepard saying. Odd that she had to remind him of that a few times during his training - crashing a shuttle wasn’t exactly SOP - but it took a while to break him of some stubborn thinking: got his mind wrapped around one solution, it was hard to unwrap and see another.
Chimera’s far beyond crashing a shuttle and has been for a couple years (hell - stealing a shuttle, blowing up a shuttle, building a shuttle, all on their resumé), but what they’re proposing right now is…not actually more unorthodox or bonkers than usual, but sets a new record for Clearly Didn’t Think This One Through.
It’s also technically illegal, though only a misdemeanor.
“No,” he says, shaking his head.
Vakarian looks across the table at Torrini with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Told you. You owe me a smoothie.”
“Hang on,” Torrini says, holding his hand out to pause her triumph. “Before I buy you whatever strawberry mango liroya peanut butter immunobooster extra protein -”
“Strawberry orange, triple boost, extra acuity sprinkles.”
“- nonsense you want, let me try one more time.” He turns to James. “I know it sounds crazy.”
“You are not repurposing the Citadel pigeons as spy drones,” James says, flatly. “I don’t care how feasible the research is. There is perfectly good C-Sec security footage you can ask nicely for.”
“Cameras are susceptible to hacks, breaks, and strategically-rearranged large plants,” Carter says.
James turns to her. “You’re involved with this nonsense, too?” He’s disappointed, but somehow not terribly surprised.
She grins and leans back in her chair. “Of course I am. It’s hilarious. I would pay good money to see Carlos try to even catch one of those demonic things, not to mention strap a tiny camera to its head.”
Torrini crumples up his napkin and throws it at her. He overshoots, and hits Rabinowitz instead. Silently, the other man picks up the napkin and hands it to Carter. She throws it back at Torrini, bouncing it perfectly off his forehead. He glares.
James stares at the both of them until they sheepishly settle down. He turns his attention back to Vakarian. “I assume you have an actual plan.”
“I do,” she says. “It involves asking C-Sec nicely for camera access, and also bribing a few duct rats.”
Torrini mutters something that sounds suspiciously like boring, but James ignores him, as does everyone else. James suspects that the pigeons weren’t really a legitimate plan, but part of a drunken dare. Vakarian’s good at those - like mother like daughter.
“I can get behind that,” he says. “You have four days. Now dismissed, before I add use local wildlife for recon to the list of shit you guys are no longer allowed to do.”
Rabinowitz pauses at the door, the other three behind him. “Technically,” he says, clearly suppressing a smirk, “we haven’t done it yet. So it can’t be something we’re no longer allowed to do.”
The laugh Vakarian tries to hold back is so loud she chokes on it and starts coughing.
James rolls his eyes. “Get out,” he says, holding back his own grin.
((Oh boy, this is gonna be a fun insight into Nora's history. It's going to reveal a lot indirectly about where she came from. I'll let her give her answers :3))
🧸 - what is their favourite childhood memory from winter?
"I remember one winter when I was little... I was still being grouped in with the other children my age in the facility." Nora fidgets with her inner elbow as she continues. "..There was one nurse... She hadn't been there long I think. The heating wasn't great... so she made a big batch of hot chocolate to warm us all up. It was my first taste of chocolate. It was so good. I think that was also the first time I saw some of those other children actually smile. She read us a story while we drank it too..." Nora trails off and frowns.
"...I didn't see that nurse again after that. I miss her."
🥀 - what’s their least favourite memory of winter?
"The first winter after I was moved into my own chamber.... It.. The move was tough. I knew why they'd done it though... It was just... cold... and lonely. I got used to it quickly, had to in there. I just slept a lot..." Nora keeps her gaze off to the side, scratching more intensely at her inner elbow. "What else could I do?"
