The gym door sealed itself shut behind him, that slow hydraulic sigh and the final click of soundproofed material cutting Sonar off mid-ramble. Equivalent exchange took its price, though, and Sky was once again forced to give up the cold rubber-and-chalk air for the sterile corporate nothing of the rest of the SDN — just floor wax and lemon disinfectant.
He rolled his shoulder as he walked — no ache, all instinct — mind still on the shipyard-sized dumbbells he’d left behind. Sky already knew which of them he’d start with the next time he had a free half-hour and nobody breathing down his neck.
The soles of his sneakers squeaked out a slow rhythm against tile, Sky finding no need to rush his way to the common area. Without any call to respond to, there really was no reason to get back to his… to the team.
Besides, this was the perfect time to map out the rat-maze layout of the SDN in his skull anyway. He took the corner wide, habit and muscle-memory from dodging ambushes in the Hollows making it a given to never hug a blind turn.
Not unless you wanted a fireball to the teeth.
"Girl, be serious." The sharp tapping of acrylic nails against a glass screen echoed off the drywall, Sky stopping his forward momentum before he took the next turn. “Like, for real? The staring? The not-talking? This Sky nigga walks around like he’s counting the exits.”I am counting the exits. Sky’s mouth twitched a little at the sound of Prism’s voice, weight eased off his heels as he leaned back against the wall. Free skill.“He is a strange one.” The French-accented voice of Coupé sounded out, every word set down careful. “This does not make him corporate.”"I'm telling you, SDN is playing games." Prism scoffed loud. "You really gonna stand there and tell me they wouldn't drop some undercover weirdo in here to watch us?"
"He breathes the air here for one day. Let the dust settle. The truth always floats to the surface."
“Corporate gets weird though, girl!”
"They can, yes."
“Nah, not like that.” Another snap of acryclics hit his ear, the woman probably gesturing from the sound of it. "Corporate weird is, like, LinkedIn weird. Vision-board weird. That boy weird like he sleep with a knife under his pillow, you know?"
Sky leaned further back against the drywall, holding his breath as a hand drifted down to his hoodie pocket. The switchblade sat right there in the same place, since he’d slid it in this morning; cheap handle, shitty balance, and barely-sharpened blade.
Shit knife, but… free knife. The hero closed his mouth tight, eyes closed as he had to admit that Prism wasn’t too far off. Yeah, alright, bitch got eyes.
"This is not to say that you’re entirely wrong. He still might be a ringer." Coupé went on, the winged woman turning her own argument inside out. "No company is above espionage.”
"I mean, yeah, but if that boy a ringer, he knows how to play. He cute even with the scars but boy needs to sleep or sum, like…" Prism let out a laugh, the sound sharp as she clapped her hands together. "Ringers usually got a skincare routine, baby."
Sky’s jaw locked tight, those last few words enough to actually hit home. Skincare routine…
As if there was enough lotion in the world to fix his scars.
At best, a couple years of moisturizing would make them look less… raw maybe but it wasn’t gonna do anything to actually make him look like he wasn’t burned the fuck up.
The sleep thing, though… He couldn’t deny that much.
Let it go. Being undeniable only pissed him off worse, though. Sky ground his back teeth together, shaking his head. They're trash. This whole Earth is trash.
"Nah, but… but real talk?" Prism's voice dropped a little. "Blazer probably only hypin’ him up ‘cause he makes Z-Team look better on paper. Rounds out the roster, y’know? Think about it, a pretty face burnt up lookin’ for a second chance, making this whole thing look less like a dumpster fire, f’real." The influencer hummed a little. "Makes the whole thing look more like rehab and that’s just good optics, you know?”
He pushed off the wall, shifting his weight to his back foot, preparing to backtrack. He could find another route to the break room. Take the long way around Accounting.
"That is likely why they took him out of the jail at all." Coupé agreed like it cost her nothing to say. "It photographs well. Better than he does, at least."
Sky froze, jaw locking up tighter as an itch crawled up the back of his neck. You're gonna be amazing, Sky.
The exemption. The whole warm hand on the shoulder of it.
A good optic.
Six months in a box with a collar frying his neck every time he talked back, five months in a hospital bed before that doing nothing but watching burn scars knit up ugly and slow on a body that used to heal clean in a day or two. Dealing with the fact that the state of California handed him over to a gig-service hero company was bad enough, but the possibility that he was only here for PR reasons…
Rounds out the roster. He hadn’t even thought that far ahead; something else that made all this so much worse. All that suspicion aimed at Blazer and he hadn’t even thought about this part of the equation.
"Maybe… maybe he don't know that part yet, though." Prism was almost soft as she said that part — almost. "That's kinda sad too, if he don't. A little funny, though."
“How so?”“Oh, y’know, lookin’ all tough while he’s teacher’s pet.” Prism hummed. “Like that.”
Sky’s hands curled into fists, fingernails digging deep into the callouses on his palms as he eased the weight off his wall. He didn’t bother rounding it, no need to give them the satisfaction of laughing to themselves when they saw his face.
Instead, Sky just turned around, footsteps quiet as he retreated his way back toward the gym corridor; voices fading into the ambient hum of the AC system.
The comm crackled in his ear before he made it a solid thirty feet.
"Sky."“...yeah?”“Oh, you’re there.” Robert Robertson III’s voice scraped into his ears, flat and as stripped of any adrenaline as it usually was. “I see you finished with Sonar.”“I did that, yeah.”“...huh.”He blinked over the sound of Robert’s voice dragging through the comms, a question clear in just that single syllable. Footsteps paused in the middle of a random intersection, Sky kept his eyes on a potted plastic ficus as he dragged a breath through his nose. “You need something…sir.”“You know you can call me Robert, right?”“That didn’t answer my question, sir.”A sigh sounded off from the other end and, even without being there, Sky somehow knew Robert was leaning back in his chair. "You good, Sky?"
"Yeah." He swallowed the heavy copper taste in his mouth and smiled like he’d just been punched in the face. "I’m real good. What's up."
A heavy pause hung over the line. The faint, high-pitched squeak of an office chair leaning even further backward bled through the microphone.
"Okay." “...okay?”“Okay, it’s just that — and don’t take this the wrong way — it’s just that…” Robert let the words drift away for a second before the man seemed to find his voice. "You sound… mad."
"That's 'cause you got ears…” Sky started walking again, the hallway still just as empty as the first time he’d made his way down this path. “...sir.”
"Right." A plastic mouse clicked twice before Robert sighed, the noise a dry scraping thing that barely even registered as a breath. He clearly wasn’t in the mood to push the point, no interest in doing any of the ‘you wanna talk about it’ song and dance some people might have tried. Sky wanted to say he respected the man for it, but he figured Robert just didn’t have the gas for it either.
"Well…” His dispatcher huffed out. “Think you can be mad while working?” “Sounds like business as usual.”“Great, because I’ve got a dispatch for you."
"Cool."
"It's… yeah, it's a pretty simple one. Should be quick." Keys clacked loud from Robert’s end, the noise rapid-fire at first until it started to slow. "Actually, I’m putting you and Prism on this one."
Sky stopped walking.
His eyes tracked a small scuff mark on the pristine linoleum as noise from down the hall, just around the corner he'd backed away from, reached his ears; the tail end of Prism's laugh at something the French one said.
He rolled his neck until it popped, that itch still sitting hot under the collar of his gi, and pushed a long breath out slow through his nose before turning on his heel.
"...cool."