flourish_or_perish | Mars and Beyond | Thursday, Fandom Time (Reply)

They had stopped off on Mars to refuel when the transmission listing the available bounties for today came in. Faye, who was laying bonelessly nearby -- it was half that she was sick, half that she was depressed -- had nothing better to do but read the list off the screen. At least she'd relocated from the only sleeping quarters? Because she'd been hogging those ever since they'd left Titan.

"Alba City?" Faye noted. The bounty was unnamed, but -- "That's less than a mile from here."

"That's less than a mile from here!" she yelled to Din, over the sound of a cattle bell because Big Shot was on, now. On all your screens. Yep. That's what you get for tapping into the bounty network in an unknown system. "You should go get it!"

Leave her here with Stark. Won't be awkward at all.

Din	"That enough to refuel?" Din asked, perking up at it. Because gas money jobs still paid.
Faye	"Refuel and buy snacks." The most important thing of all! Faye knew her audience, here. The snacks were important to her, of course, but they were also important to certain alien babies. (Also maybe the guys wanted to eat, too.)
Din	"And you two will be... okay here?" Look, it was a tiny bit tense for him. But on the plus side, work was an excellent distraction.
Faye	"Fine," Faye replied, while not actually looking anywhere near Stark. "We'll be fine." WHAT TENSION?
Din	THE TENSE TENSION AND THE SAD GLOWY HUMANOID, FAYE. "...sure," he said, clearly not believing that. "I better come back to my ship still in one piece."
Stark	Din was obviously imagining tension. "I'm not going to do anything to your ship," Stark said. "How would I get home?"
Faye	"I mean, I could take you, but that's beside the point," Faye said, gracing Din with a reassuring smile. "I'm probably just gonna sleep." She was not.
Stark	"Are you still not feeling well?" Look, he had a lot of feelings right now and concern was definitely among them. And if she wasn't feeling well then maybe she wasn't going to sleep just avoid talking to him. Maybe.
Faye	"I'm not, like, great," Faye replied, darting a look over at Stark. "Definitely think Din can handle this alone." This was one part not feeling well and two parts not wanting to have to do this bounty, Stark, come on. ...and maybe something could be done about the tension. (Not that. Probably. Unless he wanted a cold, too.)
Stark	Did Baniks even get colds? Maybe they'd find out! "I'm sure he can," Stark agreed. "And I wouldn't be much use." Not for tracking down a bounty.
Din	Was Din slowly backing away from this scene? Yes. Yes, he was. "Just keep an eye on the kid, okay?" He'd been sad since the space magic healing hadn't worked.
Stark	Did you even need to ask, Din? "Of course we will." They could all be sad together!
Faye	Grogu and his sadness was an incredibly welcome buffer, actually. Couldn't do too much about the tension with a baby around. (Well. Not that that might always stop Faye, but she'd use that buffer to her advantage right now, anyway.) "Good luck!" she called after Din as he walked off. The bounty wasn't worth much and it wasn't far away -- this was basically free money, as far as she was concerned, considering how easy the mark must be. "We'll just...stay put." Here, in the spaceship of No Tension At All, What Are You Talking About.
Stark	Stark wasn't going to yell with a sad green baby around, at least. Crying might still be an option though. "I wouldn't even know where to go if I wanted to leave, " Stark said eventually. Had that been an uncomfortably long silence before he spoke? Maybe. "But I don't want to."
Faye	"We could probably get to Tharsis on the fuel we've got." Faye at least had the grace to look a little abashed as soon as the words left her mouth. Probably best not to mention the Martian city she'd taken Stark on a date, right now. "But I don't want to go anywhere, either." Maybe that was a more welcome statement. Maybe he even needed to hear that from her, right now.
Stark	Mentioning Tharsis was fine. Stark would just look marginally sadder but how could anyone tell, really? "But you did." And now they were here. "Are you sure you don't want to, still?"
Faye	Faye was quiet for a moment as she drew her legs up to her chest and glanced over at him. "No. It was a mistake." She could admit that, now. To be fair, she also had really not expected anyone to follow her. Whether she would have realized this was a mistake on her own without intervention was another matter.
Stark	"Was it?" Stark had been avoiding eye contact, for the most part, since they'd found her. But he was looking right at Faye now. "It felt deliberate."
Faye	She deserved to be held accountable for this, even if it kind of hurt. Again, she was supposed to just go off and be alone forever and regret this all on her own -- it was much harder to own up to this with him looking at her. "Just because I did it on purpose doesn't mean it's not something I regret now," Faye said quietly, keeping her gaze steadily on Stark. "I didn't mean to hurt you." It was complicated, because she sort of had? But only in the name of not hurting him worse when something bad happened to her someday. She had just been thinking of everyone's future, eventual pain. And maybe that had been kind of stupid and short-sighted. Maybe.
Stark	"But you did." In case the hurt wasn't obvious, Faye. He'd been left before. He hated it. "Did you really think that wouldn't hurt? If course it hurt! You left. You left and you didn't say anything. You didn't give me a chance to say anything. You were just gone!" He stopped, looked down at his hands that he'd been twisting together, then back to Faye. "How could that not hurt me?"
Faye	"I left a note," Faye offered, knowing how weak that argument was as she said it. "I just -- I don't know. I thought it would be better to...cut it off before I hurt both of us more than this. And you scared me. With what you said." Honestly. He had to know that was part of it. Though given that Faye had steadfastly refused to use her words like an adult, he might not realize how that was part of it.
Stark	Stark's shoulders slumped at that. The floor had suddenly gotten very interesting. "I just thought you should know. You deserved to know. I wanted you to know." It was true and he'd meant it. He wasn't going to take it back. "It's...I didn't want to scare you," he continued, sounding more miserable with each additional word. "Never that. I just... you don't have to feel the same. I just wanted you to know."
Faye	"But now there are stakes," Faye protested softly. "I thought -- I didn't leave because I don't feel the same way." That was a very backwards way of saying 'I love you, too,' but it was sort of hidden in there all the same.
Stark	"But you left," Stark said again. He was stuck on that point because it hurt. "You left and I..." He stopped, frowned, and looked at her, startled. Had she not said what he thought she hadn't said? "What?"
Faye	You heard her, Stark. You heard her incredibly clear words! "I left because I didn't know what would happen if I stayed," Faye explained, though that sure was playing fast and loose with the word 'explain' there, wasn't it? "What, we're going to just, like, be happy? That doesn't happen to me. And now there are stakes, and it's just gonna hurt worse if something bad happens to one of us." Faye, meet Logic. Logic, meet -- oh, wait, she's wandering off, apparently Faye wanted nothing to do with you, Logic.
Stark	"You didn't know what would happen if you left, either!" Obviously she hadn't predicted anything about this whole ordeal. "And Faye..." Stark let his voice trail off, trying to find the right words. This was hard and didn't think it had to be. The way he felt had been simple. "Why couldn’t we be happy? I'm happy. I was happy. Not right now. Now I'm...I don't know what I am right now." Confused. Hurt. A little angry still. Tired. Sad.
Faye	She was absolutely making all of this so much harder than she had to. "It was a mistake," she repeated, softer now because she really did hate seeing that she'd done this to him. "I see now that it was a mistake. I just -- I got scared, so I left to do something...stupid." And then hearing how that had come out, and coupled with how things were on Callisto -- not to mention how they'd found her -- she hastened to add, "Not like that. Not -- I was just looking for a fight and I knew I'd find one on Callisto. But I didn't leave to hurt you. I left to protect you. Because love hurts." At least she was trying to let him in on her thought processes, here. This was opening up, for Faye. And she'd even actually said the L word, there, though it would take her a little more effort to string it together with some other necessary words that he might like to hear.
Stark	Stark flinched, just a little, when Faye mentioned wanting to do something stupid. Because he had listened to Spike, in spite of himself, and then the bartender had said she was followed, and then they had found her handcuffed in a strange man's bed and everything about Callisto had been terrible. But he did believe her. "I don't need to be protected from you." It was too late for that anyway. "I don't want to be protected from you."
Din	Want to know just how easy of a bounty it was? Din literally didn't know this place from Adam and still managed to snag the guy without any trouble. Didn't even get to use his super cool line on him. "Keep moving," he said, pushing the cuffed man up into the cargo hold of the ship. Which was still there, not on fire, and not filled with the sounds of yelling. Which seemed good!
That Super Easy Bounty	That cuffed man shuffled along, eyeing the ship suspiciously. When had the ISSP gotten these uniforms? Armor like that, he had to figure this guy was actually legitimate. Or else really slumming it, maybe, since he knew his bounty also hadn't been worth much. He glanced around at the other occupants of the ship. Titan vet, maybe, and -- oh, no. Oh, shit, it was definitely her.
Stark	"That was fast," Stark said, looking at Din. He really hadn't wanted to be interrupted so soon. Then he turned his attention to who Din had brought in. The man who was looking at Faye in a way Stark didn't care for. "Why are you looking at her like that?"
Faye	Oh, Faye knew why he was looking at her like that. Or at least, she thought she did. He'd put on quite a bit of weight since she'd seen him last. And he was averting her gaze now, but -- that hair. The cheekbones. Those thin eyebrows. Faye got to her feet abruptly, stalking over to get right in the guy's face before reaching up, grabbing him by the hair, and yanking his head down. That fucking barcode tattoo. "Whitney Haggis Matsumoto," she ground out in absolute disbelief.
Whitney	"Uh, yeah," he replied, trying to look at her though it was pretty hard with her holding his head down like this. He smiled, anyway. Maybe that'd help. "It's been a long time, Sleeping Beauty."
Faye	Faye pulled him back upright, but only so that she could send her right fist flying into his eye. Of all the fucking bounties on all the fucking planets, this was who they were going to find when she was in the middle of that talk with Stark?
Din	Din really wasn't about to stop her here when there was clearly some personal stuff going on. But he did look over at Stark in case he knew what the hell was going on here.
Stark	Stark had a vague idea, Din. Nothing good was going on was clear, at least. Faye had talked about a Whitney. But... "You're meant to be dead!"
Whitney	"But I'm not/i>!" Whitney told this random masked guy who apparently knew all about him, and if he hadn't been half bent over in pain he would have tried to be funnier about that. "It was just --"
Faye	"You look different. I want a full explanation." Faye interjected, grabbing him by the elbow lest he try to make a break for it. Honestly, better still -- she could probably just take him in herself. There was nothing wrong with her ship except that no one wanted her to run off again. So, you know, here she was, thinking about running off. With an old boyfriend, no less. But just for a second.
Whitney	"It's been over three years. You look healthy," Whitney told Faye, and she probably should hit him again for the way he said that. But he could also tell she wasn't amused, and wanted something that at least sounded like the truth. "I wanted to start all over. Start from scratch."
Din	"Are we putting in in the carbon freeze?" Din asked, sort of looming next to him. Because that much he was good at.
Stark	Stark was just looking from Faye to Whitney and back again. He'd never been much good at looming. "Faye?" Her name was doing a lot of work here. Was that meant to 'what's going on?' or 'what do you want to do?' or something else entirely?
Faye	"Carbon freeze in a sec," Faye decided tersely, her eyes still fixed on Whitney's face. "What, is this, like, your game? Conning women out of their money?"
Whitney	"Well, you became a bounty hunter, Sleeping Beauty," Whitney pointed out. "I'd say it was destiny." Those were two totally unrelated things, but okay.
Faye	"Carbon freeze it is!" Faye decided, giving him a non-too-gentle yank on the arm in the direction of said carbon freeze. Which, that certainly had to be an ominous phrase for someone who'd never seen one before. "Guys, this is my ex, and as Stark already pointed out, I thought he was dead."
Din	Din hummed in understanding about really shitty ex's. Which was probably new information. "I've been told it occasionally causes temporary blindness," he informed the guy, fully comfortable with letting Faye push the button.
Stark	"Is that... necessary?" Stark was fully on board with Faye punching this man if she thought he deserved it. Blindness seemed a bit extreme. He'd probably be absolutely fine with anything they wanted to do to Whitney in a few minutes.
Faye	"It'll keep him from talking," Faye replied irritably, shoving Whitney into the carbon freeze and holding him in place with a foot while hovering her hand over the button threateningly. "Once I've got my answers."
Whitney	Whitney's eyes darted nervously to what her hand was doing. "What's happening? What is this?"
Faye	"Who am I?" Faye challenged, not answering any of that. It was only temporary blindness, okay? "Where do the lies stop and the truth begins?"
Whitney	"Are you sure you want to know?" Whitney asked after a quiet moment, his eyes fixed on her hand. "Can you handle your own past?" Faye's hand shifted a fraction closer to the button in answer. "Okay, okay! The truth is -- none of us really knew!" he yelped, shoving a hand at the foot she had pinning him in there. "The doctor named you after his favorite song, 'My Funny Valentine,' but we knew your first name was Faye -- that's it. All other records of you were lost in the accident."
Faye	Faye was quiet for a second as she processed this, wilting just slightly. "So you pinned a fucking ton of debt on a woman with amnesia?" she asked incredulously. "You were all in on it?" Setting aside the fact that she had mourned this dumb guy with her whole heart, and that his supposed death was responsible for almost all of her conflicting feelings about this whole...Stark thing -- he didn't even have answers for her after all this?
Stark	Stark had been hanging back, feeling that it wasn't his place to interfere with any of this. Now he moved closer to Faye in what was meant as a silent show of support. He was there, if she wanted him to be. "You hurt her." Well, maybe not a silent show of support then. "She deserves better." He hadn't quite put all the pieces together here yet but upon further reflection the punching had been completely deserved and maybe the freezing would be too. "Are you alright?" he asked in a much softer tone. That wasn't really the right question and he was aware of that but he wasn't sure what to say to Faye right now.
Faye	"I'm good," Faye ground out, and in a way, she was. She was furious, but the lack of answers was in itself an answer. "Feeling pretty stupid, but good." She focused back on Whitney, lowering her leg and taking a step back. "Nice seeing you again," she said softly.
Whitney	"You too, Sleeping Beauty," he replied, still clearly nervous. "I meant that much, you know. I really did fall --"
Faye	And with that, Faye had heard enough, and slammed her hand down on the carbon freeze button. "Damn it, should have gone through his pockets first."
Din	The rush of air as he was basically turned into a very worried looking statue cleared up shortly after that. "We can do that when we drop him off." Since he kiiiinda doubted they knew how to thaw folks here.
Stark	"You should have hit him first," Stark said. "Then checked his pockets. You can, later. Do both." He was assuming Whitney would be... not a statue anymore eventually. He didn't know how this worked. "Or I could. If you wanted."
Faye	Well, they could thaw out some folks. Just not ones frozen like this. And Stark, you were being treated to quite the heart-eyes right now. "You want to hit him?" She had already loved you before, Stark, what were you trying to do to her.
Stark	It had been a long few days, Faye, and Stark was dealing with a lot of emotions. A lot of emotions and no good outlets for any of them. He turned to look at Faye properly. "He deserves it." That was a yes. "I don't have to." "And I couldn't hit the other one," he added under his breath. That was probably a good thing. It wouldn't have ended well.
Din	Well, he had some back up there. Even if it was reluctant back up sometimes. "Anyone who takes advantage of someone like that deserves what they get," Din chimed in with all seriousness. Because he would have been a little more rough in bringing the guy in if he'd known.
Faye	"Yeah," Faye agreed, sighing a little as she looked at her now-frozen, not-late-and-actually-ex-boyfriend. "Wait a second, what other one?" She only had the one shitty ex, you guys. It wasn't that bad.
Stark	"The..." Stark started to answer, then looked over at Din as if that was going to help. "Nothing. Nothing. I didn't...Nevermind."
Din	"The bartender was pretty obnoxious, yes," Din said like he could help Stark out of this hole by lying poorly.
Faye	Faye narrowed her eyes at both of them, frowning before ultimately heaving a sigh. "I don't believe either of you," she declared. "But whatever. Let's go turn him in and go home." He was only worth like twenty bucks, anyway. Enough for maybe a half-tank of space gas and a space Happy Meal for Grogu. But also, Faye had said 'home' and meant Fandom, and maybe that kind of meant something here even if she wasn't acting like it.
Stark	Her saying that absolutely meant something to Stark. "I'd like to go home," he said with a hopeful little smile. Taking her home had been the goal from the start. They could discuss who Stark had wanted to hit and why later. After some other discussions that very much needed to happen.