Chapter Text
Surge awoke with a start, gasping for air and clawing at her chest like she was trying to remove her rapidly beating heart.
She cringed as another jolt of electricity passed through her metallic skeleton, clenching her fists so tight she drew blood from her palms. Luckily for her, her healing factor closed the wounds immediately.
She shook her head as she stumbled up and out of the bed, shambling over to the bathroom like a walking corpse. She caught a glance of the electric clock on the bedside table, 3:16 am. It was going to be a long day.
Surge opened and entered the bathroom as quietly as she could in her debilitated state, trying not to wake her companion up. She gripped the edges of the sink tight, not applying quite enough pressure to crack the surface. She could easily rip the entire fixture out of the wall and had half the mind to do so, but didn’t want to deal with the ensuing headache the backlash would likely give her.
“Ma’am?” A small tired voice rang out from just outside the door. Surge cursed a few obscenities internally. It was rare that the Fennec got a full night's rest, whether from tinkering with some device he had or just an inability to fall asleep, and she especially hated being the reason for that lack of rest.
“Go back to bed Drip.” She managed to force out through clenched teeth, trying her best to not let her anger direct towards him. The kid didn’t deserve that.
Kit directly disobeyed her order, her potential health issues taking precedence over all else. He pushed the door open hesitantly, watching as she hovered over the counter, grimacing.
“Ma’am, are you-“ the Tenrec didn’t even allow him to finish that sentence.
“I’m fucking fine Drippy go back to bed!” Surge immediately scrunched her face in shame. All Kit had wanted was to make sure she was ok and here she was yelling at him.
“… is the pain back?” He didn’t even question her outburst or judge her for it. He just fulfilled his primary purpose, serving her. Surge would feel grateful if the forced obligation didn’t make her sick.
“Yeah… yeah it’s back.” She looked forward at the mirror, seeing the pain and distress evident on her own face. She looked away, repulsed.
Kit immediately left and returned with a bottle of water from the Hotels mini fridge, handing it to her. Surge accepted it with a grunt of appreciation.
“Damn, faulty bullshit tech, that platypus was such a cheap piece of shit.” She complained as she opened the cap of the bottle, downing the liquid immediately. Kit had taken up residence on the counter, looking over her concernedly.
The fennec fox’s eyes darkened upon mention of Starline. “The pain should go away again soon, though it’s impossible to track just when it will return again. Every time it’s happened it’s been at irregular intervals.”
“I’m just tempted to rip my whole damn skeleton out at this point. Feels like I’m being stabbed all over every time it happens.”
“What about when it’s not there? Is there still chronic pain?”
“The constant dull pain crap? Yeah that’s always there.” Surge dunked the used water bottle into the bathroom trash, her pain leading to a bit more aggression than necessary. “How come I’m the only one who feels that way anyhow? You don’t feel this crap.”
“I’ve been thinking about that for a while, and the best idea I have is that the constant electric current running through your body could be causing malfunctions with your mechanical skeleton. It’s possible that because my powers are largely external, I encounter less issues than you do when it comes to day to day life. Your abilities are much more volatile and could be causing more issues.” Kit shifted uncomfortably. “It’s also likely that due to Starline’s lack of resources at the time, the materials he used on hand could have been faulty in of it themselves, and the pain your experiencing is a byproduct of faulty or substandard equipment.”
Surge groaned as if the idea of her cybernetic body being half assed was a mere inconvenience. “Bastard was lucky we turned out better than the sum of our parts then huh? Seriously, I don't know how he managed to make us so strong if he couldn’t even make my damn skeleton not hurt me.”
The duo sat in silence for many moments, before Surge finally couldn’t handle the lack of noise any longer. “You should really head to bed Drip, I’m probably not getting much more sleep with all this.”
Kit immediately protested. “A-are you sure Ma’am? I-I can stay up-“
Surge cut the young fox off again, though she didn’t feel nearly as guilty about it this time. “I’ll feel a helluva lot better if you get some rest than I would knowing you're up ‘cause of me. I’ll just… deal like I always do.”
Kit looked like he was going to resist for a moment longer, but the blue fox simply nodded his head and sauntered back into bed.
Surge stared at the door for a moment before letting out a deep sigh. “Fucking cheap ass doctor…” she mumbled out before splashing her face with more water.
_______________________________________
Whisper was always the first of the Diamond cutters to wake up. It was only natural, she was the most militaristic of the group, and the one who acted most like a soldier. She had to get up bright and early (or not so bright) everyday back in the war, and it was a habit that never truly left her.
Whisper found herself waking up early, five or so in the morning, tangled up in… tangle. Tangle was the complete opposite of Whisper, she stayed in bed late most days, though Lanolin always ensured she set an alarm to wake the Lemur up on mission days. That was still a few hours out.
Whisper pried herself free of her furry entrapment once she finally couldn’t handle the warmth of her partner. Most of the time it was comforting, but right now it was just causing her to sweat.
She glanced over at Lanolin’s bed, seeing the sheep still bundled up in a blanket. The sheep was the second to wake up, she would probably wake up earlier than Whisper if she didn’t spend so much time up at night. Whisper internally hated how seemingly no one could convince their leader to take even more than one day off a week. Well, there was a few days ago with Surge…
Whisper shook her head. She’d have plenty of time to regret ever encountering Surge later when she actually had to deal with the aggravating speedster. She would enjoy her time without her while she still could.
After freshening up for the day, Whisper carefully exited her shared room as to not wake the others, and made her way down towards the lobby. She was pretty certain the free breakfast had just opened up.
As she suspected, the dining area was nearly completely empty, besides one seat occupied by…
‘You have to be joking.’ Whisper internally moaned.
Sitting right next to the breakfast cart, sitting was a clearly miffed Surge, practically seething at the fact the diner didn’t open up until another hour.
Whisper reluctantly made her way over to the green Speedster, who merely acknowledged her presence with a grunt.
“If you're here for food you're an hour early, bastards.” Surge spat out, head resting on her crossed arms. “I think it should be open earlier but fuck me i guess.”
Whisper studied the Tenrec for a moment, seeing more than just her usual grumpiness present on her face. Something was up.
Surge very much did not appreciate this acute observation. “What? Got something on my face?”
Whisper shook her head and sat down face to face with the Tenrec, not entirely sure why she even bothered. But something about this intrigued her.
“You're up early.” The wolf commented, studying her teammates facial expression.
Surge just scoffed, but looked off to the side to avoid eye contact. “Could say the same for you.”
Whisper shook her head. “I always wake up early, you don’t strike me as the type.”
Surge grunted and shot the sniper her signature wolf grin, though it was looking a little strained. “Well you know what they say about assumptions.” She shrugged her shoulders, but let a minuscule flinch at the motion, something an eye less trained than Whispers would never have picked up on.
“You're hiding something.” Whisper stayed plainly, not one for Surge’s games.
Surge herself choked up for a moment, eyes widening slightly, before resuming her cocky look. “Uh, I dunno what the hell your referring to sunshine, but I’m not keeping any secrets… ok?”
Whisper sniffed that lie out immediately. “You're acting off, I can tell.”
“Oh so you're an expert on me now huh? Know what I’m feeling ‘cause you stared hard enough.”
“Surge… whatever this is-“ Whisper stopped when she heard a voice behind her speak up.
“Can we not start this so early in the morning?” Lanolin had snuck up on the two in the commotion and quickly stopped any argument from forming.
Surge quickly rose to attention. “Ok no, I didn’t start this one! I was chilling here when she came up and started… psycho analysing me or something! I didn’t start this.”
“I don’t care who started it or didn’t I’m stopping it, end of discussion.” Lanolin huffed and turned, heading over to the coffee machine.
“Oh so coffee is all day but food isn’t? What bullshit!” Surge seemed to have an even shorter fuse than usual today.
‘Probably something to do with that flinching…’ Whisper chose not to pry any further, only for the sake of Lanolin.
The sheep in question returned a few minutes later and took a seat next to Whisper, taking a sip from her coffee. “I didn’t expect you to be up so early Surge.”
Surge scoffed. “Why’s everybody so damn interested in my sleep schedule? I can wake up when I want.”
Lanolin cast a glance and Whisper. “It was just an observation…” clearly Lanolin had picked up on whatever Whisper had.
Surge was always a little angry, but most conversations with her were her being passive aggressive or keeping up what the Tenrec’s misguided attempts at civility, but this was something else. She was often unpleasant to be around in whispers opinion, but this was something else entirely. Maybe…
Whisper's thoughts were cut off by Surge’s next question. “Hey that crap give you energy right?” She was currently pointing at Lanolin’s mug.
“Oh, coffee? Yeah it does, why?”
“I’m having some.” Surge abruptly stood and strode over to the coffee pot, grabbing the whole pitcher.
“H-have you ever had coffee before?” Lanolin questioned, eyeing the Tenrecs movements as she came back to the table.
“No, but it’s gotta make this crap feel better…” whatever Surge was referring to she made no attempt to elaborate as she lifted the entire pot above her and pored the steaming hot coffee straight down her throat. Whisper and Lanolin stared at her stupefied.
After what must have been undoubtedly an incredibly painful experience, Surge simply sighed. “This crap better give me as much of an energy boost as it does you wooly.”
“R-right.” Was Lanolin’s only response as Surge buried her head in her arms once again.
Whisper knew in that moment, she would never know what to expect from Surge ever again.