What began as an irradiation hypothesis and a way to reconnect with the world has become a disenchanted struggle to the end of her three-month research commitment. By the time Santana follows an urchin to a hut on the outskirts of town, she's seen so much vomit and diarrhea that she's honestly a little relieved to find ominous emptiness instead of more malaria victims.
She's also ready to trade what's left of her incredibly expensive experimental gamma prophylactics in exchange for a proper hot shower.
The urchin slips out a window in the back of the hut and Santana freezes. The silence puts Santana on edge.
(In her gut, she can feel the other girl stirring anxiously—angry-anxious, the way she gets.)
Santana grits her teeth and snaps, "Who's there?"
"Just me," says a voice just behind her. Santana whirls on a blond woman with one eyebrow raised and a ridiculous skintight black getup.
"Who's me?" growls Santana, one hand gripping her bag behind her hip and the other splayed lightly across a tabletop.
The stranger offers a quietly menacing smile and steps closer.
(The other girl turns Santana's stomach, aching to escape her cage; Santana sighs into it.)
"Black Widow," says the blonde, apparently as an answer.
Santana sneers over her nervousness. "I said I was done with that shit," she says, digging her nails into the grain of the wooden table.
"What shit?" asks Black Widow in the voice of a condescending kindergarten teacher.
"Capes shit. You won't get her out of me."
Black Widow looks at Santana like she's a puzzle with a prize inside. Santana cloaks her rage in annoyance and ignores the way Snix rumbles in her bones.
"Who says I want her out of you?" asks Black Widow.
"They always want her," Santana scoffs, caught a little off guard. SHIELD doesn't usually play coy when they want Snix to fuck shit up, and it seems a strange time to start.
Black Widow reaches the table, and Santana looks her up and down uneasily. "What about you?" asks Black Widow, wrapping her fingers around the back of the chair while Santana decides she probably couldn't take her without letting Snix out.
"What about me?"
Black Widow shrugs. "Holliday called me and told me they need you to track something with gamma rays."
Santana stares at her in naked astonishment. "Holliday wants me—for gamma rays?"
Black Widow looks Santana up and down, so steadily it makes Santana's skin crawl. "What else would she want you for?"
"Don't play dumb." Santana scowls and straightens up, touching the strap of her bag where it crosses her chest. "It's unattractive. You know who I am, and so do I."
"No, I don't," says Black Widow, and she sounds so disappointed it catches Santana off-guard again. "It'd sure be interesting to find out."
Santana snaps. "No, it wouldn't!" she thunders, twisting and pounding the table with two fists. She glares Black Widow hard in her startled eyes before glancing at the barrel of the gun pointing at her face. Black Widow must have stashed it, under the table or in that skintight suit of hers.
Black Widow waits, frozen and tense; she's clearly sure Santana's going to transform any second. Santana stands back and uncurls her fingers in surrender. "Hey, easy," she soothes, sliding her eyes back to Black Widow's pretty face. "I just wanted to see what you'd do."
Black Widow's hands shake, almost imperceptibly. She looks unconvinced.
"Let's do this the easy way," Santana suggests with a small smile. "Where you don't have to use that"—she gestures at the gun—"and the other girl doesn't make a mess."
Finally, after an unbearably tense pause, Black Widow lowers her gun and touches her ear. "Stand down," she says; outside, Santana can hear a dozen firearm safeties clicking on.
Santana smirks and cracks the knuckle of her thumb against the tabletop to keep herself focused. "Just you, huh?" she chuckles, mirthless and tired. She wonders if SHIELD dropped a glass containment sphere over the building while they were talking.
Black Widow smiles without guilt or regret. She holsters her weapon and says, "Either way, Holliday said they lost something that leaves a gamma trail, or something, and that you're the go-to gamma girl. So are you on board, or what?"
Santana stares at her and tries to ignore the sting of hope at the thought of SHIELD wanting to use her for her proper use. After a long pause, Santana wets her lips and mutters, "Fine. This radiation-malaria research isn't going anywhere, anyway."
"Good." Black Widow smiles like a Cheshire cat and watches Santana fidget. After a beat, she narrows her eyes at Santana, almost amused. "How do you keep control of it? Yoga? Prozac?"
Santana stares at her suspiciously. "Fuck you."
Black Widow laughs. "You wish," she says, brushing past the table and Santana and heading for the doorway. She pauses, raises her eyebrow again, and gestures for Santana to follow her outside—like she's surprised it wasn't obvious.
"Now?" asks Santana, thinking of her duffel bag at the clinic and her contact lens case left in the ratty room she's staying in. She automatically touches the glasses tucked around the first button of her shirt.
Black Widow nods. Halfway to the subtle giant black SUV, she turns to Santana and says, "I'm Quinn."
"Fuck you," says Santana.
"Dr. Lopez!" calls Quinn from behind. Santana spins, feeling childlike and out-of-place amid what seems to be an outsize, aquatic air force base.
"Quinn," says Santana, holding her bag and glasses against the gusts of wind rolling off the planes. Quinn's standing beside Finn Hudson, the famous iceman.
When they reach Santana, Finn pulls a hand from the pocket of his distressed leather jacket and offers it to her with a grin. He's both taller and dopier in person than he is on television, and she takes his hand and gives it a single distrustful pump. "Mr. Hudson," she greets.
"Ma'am," he says with his kick-me grin. He shoves his hand back in his pocket and squints to look around the ship. "Word is you're cube-finding gal."
With narrowed eyes, Santana baits, "Is that the only word on me?"
Finn puffs up. "Only word I care about," he assures with a cocksure wink.
Santana eyes him and glances at Quinn. "This must be strange for you," she tries, looking at Finn again.
"Actually, this is pretty familiar," he says, shooting a wistful look of angst at a pack of soldiers jogging laps around the airfield.
Just as Santana clears her throat to try to kill his weird private moment, Quinn breaks the silence for her cleanly. "You may want to step inside, new blood."
Her words are punctuated by near-deafening mechanical noises. Santana scampers to the edge and looks down; Finn follows her, asking, "Is this a submarine?"
Santana snorts, watching the water churn mysteriously, and mutters, "They really want me in a submerged, pressurized container?"
"Not a submarine," says Quinn behind them.
The turbines emerge, triumphant, from the spray, already whirring ominously. Santana's stomach drops and her lips twist in a grim smile. "Oh, no," she mutters, "this is much worse."
The deck of the helicarrier would be more arresting if Santana hadn't worked with SHIELD before. As it is, she shuffles around the perimeter of the bridge, startling to a stop when she nearly bumps into two SWAT-outfitted agents flanking a closed door. She bites her lips, feeling that nervous, irrational guilt she gets when she forgets to take her belt off before passing through a metal detector: like she's impersonated a dangerous criminal and wasted the guards' time.
(Snix churns in her belly, as if to sneer at Santana's timidity.)
She wraps her arms around her stomach and hunches her shoulders against the agents' uninterested eyes.
Ahead, Holliday's already set up at her podium, directing the smartly dressed attendants with her characteristically casual country lilt. Santana's fingers loosen where they grip her shirt; she didn't realize she missed Holly until now.
(Again, she feels the other girl pace inside her, like a tiger trapped.)
She feels embarrassed, caught, even if Snix is the only one who's noticed. She clutches her sides tighter to distract herself.
Once Holliday instructs the monitor jockeys to activate the cloaking panels, she twirls on her heels and beams at Santana, Finn, and Quinn. "Hey, dudes," she greets, clasping her hands together.
Finn sidles up to a SHIELD agent with curly brown hair and slips him a $10 bill. Santana keeps her arms folded and her eyes on Holliday, who sidles straight up to her with that honey-sweet smile.
"Thank you for coming, Dr. Lopez," Holliday purrs, offering her hand to shake.
Santana tugs her hand from where it's wedged under her armpit and shakes Holliday's, swallowing her blush and her nerves. "Thanks for asking nicely."
"Sure thing, sweet cheeks," says Holliday.
When Holliday stays quiet, just stares and smiles, Santana clears her throat and says, "I hear you need me for gamma rays. After that, I get to leave?"
Holliday shrugs and sashays back toward her array of monitors. "As soon as you find the Tesseract, you're off the hook."
Santana glances at Quinn, but Quinn's busy peering at a tech's computer screen. "Is that the gamma rays thing you put in the teaser trailer?"
"It gives off small traces of gamma radiation," Holliday explains. She raises an eyebrow and flashes that smug little smile of hers. "That's where you come in."
"That's where I come in?" asks Santana doubtfully, glancing at the others and folding her arms again. When Holliday just keeps smiling at her—almost curiously, like she's going to make Santana say it, like SHIELD has ever wanted her for anything besides Snix—Santana coughs delicately and scuffs her toe against the floor. "Where are you guys on finding the casserole, or whatever?"
"We have every camera on the planet looking for Blaine or the Tesseract," the curly-haired agent cuts in, "but we haven't come up with anything."
Quinn snorts. "Yeah, 'cause I really want to bet the fate of the planet against the odds someone texts a picture of the pretty glowing Rubik's cube. That won't be fast enough."
Curly-hair glares at her, so Santana cuts in before the tension can boil over. "You just need to narrow the field. I can draw up some quick guidelines for research labs to use to scan for the gamma rays, if you can get the researchers on the phone."
"Done," says Holliday, almost happily.
"Then I'll put together a tracking algorithm. We can narrow it down for your satellite search." Santana unknots her arms and delicately opens her glasses. "Do you have somewhere for me to work?"
Holliday snorts. "Duh! You know I hooked you up. Agent Fabray, would you show Dr. Lopez to her lab, por favor?" She shoots a wink at Santana; Santana ducks her head, feeling heat rise in her cheeks, and follows Quinn off the bridge.
"You're gonna love it," Quinn confides with a small smile. "We got all the toys."
A herd of SHIELD agents in full gear make a point to perp-walk Blaine past Santana's lab. She's spent all afternoon and evening looking up every time someone passes, and she does a double-take and pulls her glasses off when she recognizes the beetle helmet and bowtie.
It's only then, when Blaine's giving her a slimy smirk after what must have been quite a fight, that Santana realizes she—well, the other girl—wasn't called in for field duty.
Still. The confidence in Blaine's expression—and the way he makes steady, happy eye contact with her—robs her of her relief.
Not long after, Holliday summons them all back to the bridge—Santana as well as the field team that captured Blaine and apparently includes the renowned Brittany Pierce, cheekily dubbed Iron Maiden, among their number.
Santana hangs back by the door, rolling her shirtsleeves up uneasily and eyeing the cluster of fellow freaks lounging around the table. There's a new addition sitting near her—tall and blonde, even—but it's not the one Santana is actually interested in meeting. This one's name is Sam, and he's supposedly connected to the pain in the ass currently inhabiting the giant glass cage meant for Santana.
The memory stings. She pushes her glasses up her nose, folds her arms, and watches the door with nervous impatience. Holliday isn't here yet, either.
The curly-haired agent, whom others have addressed as Agent Schuester, activates a set of television panels in the center table for them to watch. The screens show Blaine in the fishbowl, wearing the same shit-eating grin he flashed Santana as he passed the laboratory.
Santana looks up when her ears start burning and she catches Quinn looking at her from the table. Santana touches her glasses where they balance on her nose and hangs back from the table and the monitors.
Blaine's not stupid. He teases Holliday, asking if she thinks human containers can hold him.
For her part, Holliday sounds amused—though Santana can't see the screens to check her expression—when she counters, "It can hold a hell of a lot more than you, bugaboo."
"Of course," drawls Blaine cheerfully. "The monster woman, more monster than woman."
Quinn glances at Santana again. Quinn's needling looks are bothering Santana far more than Blaine's petty jabs do. It's beginning to feel like Quinn doesn't think Santana can handle the reminder; as if Santana doesn't live with the reminder stomping and frothing inside her every second of every day.
Blaine baits Holliday, calling her powerless and overwhelmed. Holliday bites back, clever and charming as always, that if he wants Star magazine, all he has to do is ask.
Still, the guy's hardly a winner. Santana bites her thumbnail just as the feed cuts out. "He sure grows on you," she mutters drily.
No one else is making noise, so everyone hears. Finn fixes it by ignoring her comment entirely. "Blaine's gonna drag this out." He looks pointedly at Sam, who stares thoughtfully into space. "Sam, you're our in, here. What's he gonna do? What's his play?"
Without looking up, Sam says, "He has an army called the Warblers. They're unlike anything you've faced before, and he means to use them to conquer this planet." Sam shakes his head. "They will install him as king and conqueror. I suspect the Tesseract will be their payment."
Finn stares blankly, probably hoping to look unimpressed. "Aliens." He glances at Quinn, then Santana, as if for backup. "From outer space."
Making a point to ignore his whining, which doesn't change the challenge ahead of them, Santana takes her glasses off thoughtfully. "He's going to open another portal first, with the Tesseract. That's why he grabbed Dr. Selvig."
"Selvig?" asks Sam, looking at Santana in alarm.
She hesitates. "He's an astrophysicist," she explains timidly, fiddling with the stalks of her glasses.
Sam's face is hard, though his eyes stay soft. "He's a friend."
"Blaine has him under some kind of hypnosis mojo," Quinn cuts in. She adds sadly, "Along with one of our own."
Before Santana can ask who it is or why Quinn cares so visibly, Finn steamrolls the conversation again. "I'd like to know why Blaine came so quietly. He was damn near whistling when we walked him in here, but he can't command an army from a cell."
Santana bristles.
(Snix rumbles.)
"Why are you basing everything on Blaine? He's about as stable and mentally balanced as that eighty-year-old animal hoarder that kept pigeons and wild field mice as matched pairs in a life-size replica of Noah's ark. His brain is a bag full of cats. I can smell his crazy from here."
"Watch it," warns Sam, standing and bracing one arm on the table. His muscles ripple ominously and Santana bites her lip. "Blaine may be skirting the reaches of his sanity, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."
Santana demurs instantly, clutching her glasses and worrying she's stepped on too many toes already.
(She feels Snix seething, at her and at everything else.)
Quinn raises an eyebrow, half threat and half morbid amusement. "He killed eighty people in two days," she reminds Sam mildly.
Now it's Sam biting his lip. "He's adopted," he amends.
Santana clears her throat and voices her thoughts—gently. "You said he was in Germany for iridium. What does he need iridium for?"
"A stabilizing agent."
The far doors open and reveal Brittany Pierce, resplendent and angelic, in plain jeans and a dark Iron Maiden shirt. Her gold hair and light eyes seem brighter in comparison, glowing like the disc visible through the fabric at her breastbone. Santana stares openly, vaguely aware her mouth is hanging open, as Brittany—the living masterpiece—sweeps gracefully across the floor.
"He needs the iridium so the Tesseract won't collapse in on itself, like when it made that mess at SHIELD." She flashes a secretive half-smile as she passes Sam, who still stands poised to make fervent gestures in not-quite-defense of Blaine. She taps his corded bicep with the back of her hand and quips, good-naturedly, "No hard feelings, trouty mouth. You got a mean swing."
Santana realizes she's been ogling, blatantly and obviously, for a full thirty seconds. She can feel Quinn's gaze, annoyed or curious or teasing or all three. Santana can't tear her eyes away from what must be a reincarnation of Helen of Troy.
"A stable portal can also open wider and stay open longer," Brittany continues, stepping up to an empty chair at the table and propping her hands on her hips.
"Perfect if you've got a big, ugly alien army you need to move," Finn sighs. He leans on his fist and begins to speak, but Quinn cuts him off.
"He has the iridium. Anything else he needs that can buy us time?" Quinn's expression hardens, and she seems to be sizing Brittany up. Then, Quinn cuts her eyes over to Santana; she raises an eyebrow, as if accusing Santana of being out-scienced.
Santana clutches her glasses in both hands, caught off-guard by Quinn's intense glare, but Brittany beats her to the punch for what already feels like the millionth time. "Your defector—Chang, was it?—can get his hands on the other raw materials pretty easily." Her voice sounds casual, but Santana senses teasing behind Chang's name.
Brittany tugs her lips downward and shrugs nonchalantly. "All he needs now is a little kick to kick-start the cube, and then he's good to go and we're gone."
"You seem awfully happy about it," Finn mutters.
Schuester frowns and asks, "Since when are you an expert in thermonuclear physics?"
Amused rather than offended, Brittany tips her head to one side and folds her arms. "Last night. When I read Dr. Selvig's notes."
Blank stares greet her from the table. Santana bites her lips and takes a shy step back to lean against the wall. Her mounting efforts to tear her eyes off of the hottest human alive are still coming up short.
Brittany drops her arms and raises her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed by her teammates. "The extraction theory papers?" she fishes, holding her hands up. "Am I seriously the only one who did the homework?"
Still biting her lips, Santana thumbs the rim of her glasses lens and tries to string a sentence together that won't group her with the rest of the unprepared morons at the table.
"What kind of power source does he need?" asks Finn, shifting in his seat and clearly annoyed at the accusation. "Will anything do? Like a flare, or—"
"He needs to heat it up," Santana blurts, less artfully than she'd like. "He'd need to get it to at least—no, a lot more than 100 million Kelvin, just to break through the Coulomb barrier."
"Unless"—Brittany holds up a finger, her eyes twinkling when they meet Santana's—"Selvig's figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnel effect."
Just when Santana's about to swoon against the wall from the look of those eyes, Brittany Pierce, the Iron Maiden, actually winks at her.
What is it with hot blondes winking at her today?
Santana's hands are starting to feel clammy and damp against her glasses. "Well," she stammers, "if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion in any reactor he can get his hands on."
Brittany takes a step toward Santana, smooth and slick as a fox. Her catwalk belies the bright smile on her face; Santana feels silly for blushing when Brittany teases, "Finally, someone on this boat speaks English."
Trouble. Big trouble. Santana braces her hand flat against the wall behind her, to make sure it's still there.
"English? That's what that was?" gripes Finn, tugging at his star-spangled outfit.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Lopez," says Brittany, taking Santana's hand and shaking it. Santana's palm is so sweaty from nerves that it almost slips from between those long fingers.
Santana opens her mouth to speak and finds herself voiceless. Her blush is creeping all the way to her ears and collarbone; Brittany makes it worse when she offers a coy smile and lets her touch linger against Santana's wrist. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled," she purrs, as if she's saying something completely different.
Santana imitates a gasping fish for another millisecond before Brittany adds, eyes glittering again, "I'm also a big fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"I'm not sure you should be," Santana manages, wiping her hand on her slacks as soon as Brittany lets go.
Just when she's finally got her voice again, Holliday strides onto the bridge and warns, "Dr. Lopez is only here to track the Tesseract. Nothing more."
It's strangely reassuring to keep hearing it; Santana's shoulders relax automatically, and she tucks her glasses back into the open collar of her shirt.
"I was hoping you'd be able to pitch in," Holliday coaxes, raising her eyebrows at Brittany with a smile.
"Start with the stick," Finn instructs. He touches his stomach with the ghost of a grimace and says, "It doesn't look like much, but it packs a punch."
Brittany turns and looks about ready to tell Finn to stuff it when Holliday nods. "Sounds like a good idea. It sure looks matchy-matchy with the cube. I'd also love to know how it turned a bunch of my expensive, remarkably well-trained operatives into a gaggle of flying monkeys." Holliday frowns. "Or is it a pack?"
"A pack, I think," Brittany pitches in.
"Monkeys?" grunts Sam. "I do not—"
"I do!" Finn perks up at his new inclusion in the conversation. He glances at Quinn's unimpressed expression and deflates slightly. "Wizard of Oz. I understood that reference."
Beside Santana, Brittany sighs quietly and rolls her eyes. She aims her eyes in front of her, an impatient, blank look on her face; when no one speaks, she turns to Santana and inclines her head. "Shall we play, Doctor?"
Santana smiles and nods.
"After you," says Brittany, gesturing grandly toward the hallway.
"Thank you, Ms. Pierce," Santana says timidly, slipping by her.
"Call me Brittany," Brittany says, cheerful and sultry all at once.
Santana looks straight ahead and tucks a stray hair behind her ear. "Okay," she whispers to the corridor ahead of her.
Brittany unpacks three stainless steel briefcases full of equipment and research tech. Santana only notices she's staring, bug-eyed, when Brittany chuckles and raps a knuckle against the glass table. "Let me guess," she teases kindly. "You just packed a toothbrush?"
Blushing, Santana ducks her head to the scepter she's scanning with one of Brittany's gadgets. Her glasses jolt forward and she pushes them back up as she admits, "Actually, I didn't even pack that. I had to buy one at Rite Aid before I got on the ship."
Brittany snorts. When Santana risks an upward glance, Brittany's expression looks happy and almost surprised.
Clearing her throat, feeling her cheeks and throat grow warmer, Santana aims her eyes at the screen and tries to read the data. "The gamma signature matches the Tesseract," she says, her voice rougher than she expects. She sets Brittany's instrument on the counter and bites her lip. "It'll take a while to process the wavelength, though."
"Not if we bypass their mainframe."
Santana looks up, a little surprised, and sees Brittany navigating one of the transparent screens with speed and confidence. Brittany wears a wicked little grin; she seems to know Santana's looking. "If we use their systems to multitask, it'll go way faster."
"Using SHIELD's computers?" asks Santana hesitantly.
"Of course," says Brittany, light and teasing. She flashes Santana a lopsided grin and Santana leans more heavily on the glass table. Brittany shrugs and explains, more gently and less roguishly, "I mean, this is their mess. We might as well use their resources, right?"
Santana nods tentatively, tracing her fingertips over the glass. She watches Brittany tweak two more computer programs and rattles her brain for something intelligent to say.
"Those are quite some carpet bags you brought," she says, gesturing at the briefcases. "Mary Poppins would be jealous."
Instantly, she's wincing from the hefty kick she wants to give herself. Maybe she'll save another kick for the asshole who administered the IQ test and declared her a genius.
(The other girl is laughing at her.)
"You should come by Pierce Tower sometime," Brittany says, impossibly unbothered by Santana's lack of game. She's coming closer and Santana straightens up. "The top ten floors are all R&D," Brittany says with a gentle smile. "State-of-the-art. You'd love it. It's Candyland."
"I'm pretty bad at Candyland," Santana murmurs. Brittany's come to a stop, about a half-foot too close. Brittany slings her left arm over the monitor and leans like a beach bum on a surfboard. Even in an airship at night under flourescents, Brittany's hair and skin glow like she's on a sunlit beach in California.
Santana's mouth is so dry. Swallowing is worse.
Brittany stares, unblinking, eyes beautiful and clear.
"Besides," Santana rushes, dropping gracelessly onto her stool, "last time I was in New York, I kind of broke—Harlem." The blush flares in her cheeks: a reminder of why she shouldn't do this, and how close Brittany's standing.
(The other girl snickers at the mention of her antics, but the beauty of Brittany's face seems to confuse her.)
Brittany tilts her head. Something gleams in her eyes, but Santana can't identify it. "I promise a stress-free environment," Brittany hums, leaning close, close, close. Santana leans her elbows on the table to hide her nerves and Brittany circles around behind her, so close Santana can feel her body heat radiating through their shirts. "No tension," Brittany says, "no surprises—"
Bzt.
"Ow!" Santana yelps, her knee stuttering against the underside of the table, her abdomen jerking and bowing away from the pain. She looks up in surprise and a dash of animal fear—
(Snix's grin looks like a grimace.)
—and Brittany's right there, their noses a hair's breadth apart, staring hard in Santana's eyes like she's about to change.
"Hey!" yells Finn, striding into the lab.
"Nothing?" asks Brittany, eyebrows raised. She looks almost impressed.
Santana's mouth hangs open.
Finn huffs. "Are you nuts?"
"You've really got it locked down," Brittany continues, unbothered. "What's your secret? Brainwashing? Mellow jazz? Huge bag of weed?"
Santana works her jaw, smiling despite herself, until Finn heaves an annoyed, long-suffering sigh. "Stop being an idiot," he shoots. Brittany looks at him as if surprised to find him standing there. "Not everything is a joke."
"Funny things are," Brittany says without cracking a smile.
Santana cracks one, even if they'd rather talk to the elephant in the room than talk to her.
(The elephant thinks it's pretty funny, at least.)
"You're putting everyone on this ship in danger. I don't think that's funny," Finn says with a grimace. As an afterthought, he glances at Santana. "No offense."
Santana rolls her eyes and shuffles on the stool. "Don't worry about me, Cap," she says wearily. "I wouldn't be here if I couldn't handle disrespect or… pointy things."
Finn's face contracts, like he thinks he should scowl, but he's not sure.
"You're tiptoeing," Brittany says, gesturing at Santana with her electric screwdriver-turned-weapon and wearing a reassuring smile. "You're hiding. You oughta strut." Brittany winks at her. "Show everybody the awesomeness that you are."
"From what I understand, the awesomeness that she is smashed half of New York into rubble," Finn sneers.
Brittany tilts her head, all mirth gone. "And from what I understand, you were five different flavors of popsicle when that happened. So how about we stick to what we know?"
"As long as you stick to the problem at hand," Finn bites, pointing at the scepter.
Brittany's eyebrows shoot up. "You think I'm not?"
The way Finn twitches his fingers and clenches his jaw serves to answer her. He folds his arms proudly over his chest.
"Why'd Holly call us in on this? Why now?" Brittany asks. She glances at Finn and Santana; Santana aims her gaze thoughtfully at the glass table and the black nail polish chipping off her thumb. Brittany looks back at Finn. "What isn't she telling us? I can't do the math without all the measures."
Finn frowns, confused. "You think Holly's hiding something?"
Brittany blinks at him. "She's a spy, Captain Crunch. She's the spy."
Finn's expression tightens, as if this is new information. Brittany glances at Santana with a secret smile. "It's bugging you, too," she says, reaching out to tap the back of Santana's hand with two fingers.
"I—uh—" Santana looks slowly from Brittany to Finn, who's glaring at her now instead of Brittany.
"Isn't it?" Brittany presses, pulling her hand back and hopping up to sit on the table.
Santana flounders. Finn's still glaring. "I—listen, I just wanna—" she sweeps her hands over the monitor and her notebook. "—do my work, and—"
"Doctor?" grates Finn. He plasters mild curiosity over his laser stare.
Instinctively, Santana turns to Brittany for backup, but Brittany seems as curious as Finn is trying to be. Santana stammers under their attention and turns back to her lap to center herself.
(The other girl rumbles happily at her anxiety.)
Slowly, Santana tugs her glasses off and holds them carefully between her fingers. "'A warm light for mankind to share.' Blaine's jab at Holliday."
A glance verifies she has their attention. Santana wets her lips.
"I think that was meant for you," she says, turning hesitantly to Brittany.
Brittany looks up and aside thoughtfully. She shuffles on the tabletop and laces her fingers together.
When it becomes clear Brittany's not going to interrupt and Finn's not going to argue, Santana clears her throat, sets her glasses on the table, and clasps her hands between her thighs. "Even if you haven't been working with SHIELD recently, Pierce Tower has been all over the news for—months and months."
"Pierce Tower?" asks Finn, raising an eyebrow and guffawing derisively. "That hideous—"
His eyes drift far enough to catch Brittany's murderous glare. Finn smacks his lips together. "—that building downtown?"
Brittany's annoyed and Finn looks constipated, so Santana clears her throat louder and says, "Yeah. It's run on a large-scale ARC reactor." She glances at Brittany; Brittany offers no corrections. "It'll run itself for—what, a year?"
Brittany smiles softly: proud. It almost feels like she's proud Santana knows all about Pierce Tower, rather than pride in the Tower itself. "And it's just a prototype," she says, turning to Finn to boast. At Finn's blank expression, Brittany smirks and explains, "I'm basically the squeaky-cleanest in clean energy right now."
"So," Santana drawls, "why didn't they bring her in on the Tesseract project?" A glance to the right, and Santana's rewarded with another proud, interested look from Brittany. "What's SHIELD doing in energy anyway?" she finishes.
Brittany's gaze darts down to Santana's lips. Santana gulps as her mouth goes dry again.
Before she can do something more embarrassing, like snap her glasses in half or fall off her stool, Brittany hops off the counter and tugs her t-shirt back into place. "I'll be sure to ask TUBBS the exact same question, once my decryption program finishes sneaking into SHIELD's secure files."
"I'm s-sorry, what?" stammers Santana.
"TUBBS?" asks Finn blankly.
"That's right," Brittany breezes, digging into her jeans pocket and pulling out a 28th-century phone that resembles the transparent computer screens she brought with her. She holds the phone up to Finn as if he'll understand anything it says. "It's been running since I hit the bridge. Pretty soon, we'll have every dirty secret SHIELD does." She flashes Santana that charming, roguish grin.
Santana blushes.
(Snix scoffs.)
"And you want them to trust you," Finn mocks, shaking his head like a teacher realizing a student is hopeless.
Brittany sighs; her annoyance breaks through. "They're an intelligence agency, and they're afraid of intelligence? Historically, not awesome."
"This is classic divide-and-conquer," Finn whines. "Blaine wants to weaken us and if we don't stay focused, it'll work."
Uneasily, Santana points out, "Blaine doesn't know about any of this. How could he be—"
"We have our orders," Finn pushes. He turns back to Brittany. "We should follow them."
Brittany cocks an eyebrow at Santana and tucks her phone back in her pocket. "Following's not really my style," she grins.
"And you're all about style," Finn derides, nose wrinkled and glancing at the Iron Maiden graphic on Brittany's chest.
"You're the one wearing an American flag in a research laboratory," Brittany bristles, "which, might I add, you have no place in."
Santana bites her lip. "Finn." He looks at her, clearly upset. Santana softens her voice and squints at him. "Really, honestly, none of this smells fishy to you?"
Finn's lips squirm. "Just find the cube," he spits finally, then turns on his heel and stalks out of the room.
After a moment, Brittany scoffs and walks back to Santana's monitor. "That's the guy my dad was obsessed with?" she mutters, leaning way into Santana's space and tilting the screen slightly to read the charts. "He had vintage trading cards and everything. I think he made a better popsicle."
"He fought Blaine," Santana offers, nervous of Brittany's closeness.
"So did I," Brittany gripes. "That guy has drunk about six gallons of Kool-Aid, and I think he's about to wet himself."
Santana laughs despite herself. "Gross."
Brittany turns—their faces are so close again—and smiles. Her gaze flicks down to Santana's lips again and Santana's cheeks heat up instantly. "People aren't meant to be sheep," Brittany hushes. "Sooner or later, he's gonna follow orders right off a cliff. I just hope I get to be there."
Brittany's eyes glint, mischievous and wicked.
"Yeah—well—" Santana looks down at the table again, smiling nervously. "I'm sure I'll read about it when it happens." She flips her glasses over against the table.
"Or"—Santana glances up and startles at the look in Brittany's eyes; Brittany smirks—"you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."
Despite Brittany's kind expression, Santana bites her lips into her mouth and looks away. "See—" She touches the screen, flipping idly between charts. "That's the thing. I don't get a suit of armor." She sucks in a deep breath, staring through the images on the monitor. "I'm exposed. Like a nerve."
Santana shudders and shakes her head.
(Her heartbeat feels like Snix pounding the bars.)
"It's a nightmare."
When she's gathered enough courage to look Brittany in the face, she finds something unfamiliar instead of the pity she expects. Brittany draws away from her slightly so she's sitting properly on the counter, twisted to watch Santana over her shoulder. "You know," Brittany says quietly, "that chunk of shrapnel is still trying to cut into my right ventricle. It tries every day." She taps the panel glowing softly through her shirt, just left of center. "This stops it. It's part of me now."
Brittany's looking at her lips again.
"Not just armor."
Santana breaks eye contact. "But you can control it," she says in a small voice.
Brittany shrugs. "Because I learned how."
"Not the same, not the same," Santana says, laughing humorlessly and playing with the screen again. Brittany swats Santana's hands away from the screen and Santana sits back to look at her, breathing a little fast.
(The other girl paces.)
"The shrapnel wants in," Santana whispers, dropping her eyes to the table. She can see her fingers twist together beneath the glass. "The—she—it wants out."
Again, Brittany quiets; Santana can feel her watching, so she keeps staring resolutely at her hands.
The computers hum. One of them beeps, after a long, stretched moment.
"I read about your accident," Brittany says. Santana notices Brittany's fingertip, drawing spirals on the glass at the edge of her vision. "That much gamma radiation… it really should've killed you."
Santana chokes out a laugh. "Are you saying it—Snix saved my life?" Her voice wavers. "Or are you just saying I should've died?"
Brittany stares at her, smooth and even, her brow furrowed in sympathy or some other friendly emotion. Santana tries to tip her chin up higher: to be braver.
"I don't really know," Brittany murmurs, reaching out to tuck Santana's hair back behind her ear. Santana shivers at the touch. "But maybe that's the way the universe balanced it out. To keep you alive."
Santana looks aside and swallows. "My life for my control over it?"
Brittany touches Santana's hair again, though it hasn't shifted or fallen. She caresses the soft place behind Santana's ear and whispers, "To return good to the world, it had to return a little evil, too."
"You don't know I'm good," Santana scoffs, feeling alert and fearful.
(The other girl gripes and rattles her cage. It feels a little like butterflies.)
"Yes, I do," Brittany breathes. She's gotten closer, and she's looking at Santana's lips again.
Nervously, Santana manages, "You said she's part of me, though. So I'm evil, too."
Brittany's eyes look darker and deeper up close. Santana feels the breath against her face when Brittany murmurs, "Nobody's just good or just evil. We're all just people."
"Some of us are more than 'just people,'" Santana starts. Her expression, her eyes pinned to Brittany's, make it obvious which of them she's talking about.
Then Brittany kisses her.
Brittany smiles against Santana's lips as she does it, carefree and careful all at once, and her hand curls around the back of Santana's neck tenderly. Santana's not sure if she's about to combust or faint or change or maybe just fall off her stool: In the end, her body just goes rigid, so still she can feel the flutter of her heart beating.
(The other girl, for once, falls dead silent.)
"You're more than 'just people' too, Santana," Brittany confides, gentle and somber as she strokes Santana's hair where it sweeps back. "You're more than Snix."
The stiffness seeps into tremulous shaking. Santana can see it, where her wavering breath hits Brittany's long loose bangs, shifting them like a breeze. "You don't know anything about me," Santana whimpers, though she's finding it harder to believe every time she says it.
The way Brittany glances at her lips makes Santana brace herself for another kiss. Instead, as she holds Santana captive with her kindness, Brittany clicks her tongue softly and whispers, "You don't know anything about you, either."
Brittany's telling Santana a story about the first time she met Schuester when Holliday storms into the lab looking peeved.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asks, arms akimbo. Brittany hops off the counter with mock innocence. "Yes, you," Holliday pushes, pointing at Brittany and Santana in turn.
Santana shrinks back, an apology rising to her lips.
(The other girl sneers.)
"You're supposed to be looking for the Tesseract, not braiding each other's hair," Holliday presses.
"We are," Santana pipes up, unwilling to be scolded when they've done nothing wrong—besides kissing on the job, a little bit. "We logged the search algorithm and the server is sweeping for the Tesseract now."
Brittany steps toward Holliday. "We'll get a hit within half a mile, thanks to your exceedingly efficient Big Brother technology. George Orwell would be proud—or, should I say appalled—" Brittany comes to a stop beside a display monitor and tilts it to face Holliday. "Although, speaking of appalled, exactly what is Phase Two?"
Unfazed, Holliday raises her brows and folds her arms. "And how do you know about—"
"Weapons?" shouts Finn, throwing a formerly high-grade blaster on the metal counter near the wall. "Sorry," he says to Brittany drily, "computer was a little slow." To Holliday, he spits, "You're using the Tesseract to build weapons? Did SHIELD used to be spelled H-Y-D-R-A?"
Holliday huffs. "HYDRA had the Tesseract before, so we gathered everything we could to—"
"Sorry to interrupt," Brittany cuts in, pointing to a missile diagram on the screen, "but your lies are a little outgunned at the moment."
Finn says something to Holliday and Quinn and Sam jog into the room. "Did you two know about this?" asks Brittany, always assessing the situation, gesturing urgently to the schematics on the monitor.
Quinn ignores Brittany and pins Santana with a uniquely hostile glare. "You wanna think about removing yourself from this situation?" she threatens.
"I gave that a shot," Santana mutters, "but you thought Calcutta was too far removed. You're the one that brought me here."
Holliday, Finn, and Sam are staring at her, too. She can feel it.
(She can feel it.)
"Blaine's manipulating you," Quinn tries, taking a step forward.
Santana scoffs. "I haven't set foot in the same room—I haven't shared air with the guy. The only people manipulating me are in this room."
Quinn stops and narrows her eyes. "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."
"Your eyelashes aren't gonna kick me out of my lab, either," Santana shoots back. She turns back to Holliday and pushes, "I'd like to know why SHIELD's making weapons that make Hiroshima look like a misfired flare gun."
Holliday sighs loudly and points at Sam. "Because of him."
That seems to catch Sam and Finn by surprise, even if no one else reacts visibly. "Me?" asks Sam, smiling nervously. "What?"
"Your brotherly spat leveled a small town," Holliday recounts unhappily. "Not only are we not alone in this universe; we're also sitting pretty at the bottom of the totem pole."
"Asgard has no fight with your people," Sam stammers.
"What if it did?" snaps Holliday. "And there's plenty of other worlds out there itching to take a bite out of us. I notice Blaine didn't have any trouble getting his hands on a bloodthirsty army-for-hire. We needed to send a signal."
Sam scoffs. "Wielding the Tesseract certainly sends a signal. A violent signal," he warns. "It signals to others that Earth is prepared for a conflict on that level."
"We need to appear formidable until we become formidable," Holliday bites. "We needed—"
"A nuclear deterrent?" chirps Brittany, sarcastically. "Holly, can you think of anything less likely to prevent interplanetary war?"
Holliday glares. "You got a better idea, Pierce?"
"If we don't know what they're packing, how do we know it'll even deter them?" asks Santana. "We could still be hilariously underprepared, but this way they know the best we've got before they show us their cards."
"Good grief," Finn whines, "stop mixing metaphors. This isn't helping find the Tesseract or stop Blaine."
(The other girl whines. Their ears ring.)
"Lay off her," Brittany spits. "You're the one so eager to follow you'd trail SHIELD into the mouth of a gun."
Quinn raises her voice. "You're all so naïve. SHIELD monitors potential threats. Without structure and order, all you get is chaos—"
(The ringing is louder. Sharper.)
"What do you think this is?" Santana demands, touching a finger to her temple. "You think we're a team? A club? No, no"—Brittany steps toward her; Santana frowns hard and looks at Quinn—"we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb."
(Buzzing.)
Quinn shakes her head. "You need to cool it—"
Brittany crosses her arms. "She's got a point. Would it kill you to let her talk for five seconds?"
"It just might," Finn says meanly. "You know she's a danger to all of us, so back off."
Brittany sizes him up. Her shoulders tense. "Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."
(The other girl plugs her ears and whines.)
"Yeah." Finn snorts and steps into Brittany's space. "Puttin' the big-girl panties on in the suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"
"A genius? A billionaire?"
Finn sneers. "I know guys with none of that worth ten of you."
Brittany raises an eyebrow in challenge. "Just because you count women as one-tenth of a person—"
"You always gotta make this about you," Finn blusters. "You're no saint. You look out for Number One. You're not the guy to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."
"I'd just cut the wire," Brittany bites. "Not all of us have been genetically altered to survive a grenade blast to the face."
Finn looks straight at Santana.
(Snix rattles like a wolf stuffed in a birdcage.)
"Whatever," Finn says, turning back to Brittany, "but if you're not gonna step aside, you can at least stop playing the hero."
"Hero like what? Like you?" Brittany laughs; her eyes stay hard and her expression clouds over like a thunderstorm. "News flash, Hudson: You're a laboratory experiment. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."
Finn shows his teeth in an ugly smile. "Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."
Quinn inches toward Santana.
Suddenly, Sam chuckles. "You're being ridiculous," he announces. "Stop being so petty."
Brittany takes a half-step back, glancing around the room. Holliday sighs and gestures to Quinn. "Agent Fabray, would you please escort Dr. Lopez to her—"
"To my what?" Santana cuts in.
(Snix howls in her cage.)
"To my cell?" Holliday's face flickers. "You already rented it out."
Uneasily, Holly says, "That was just—"
"In case you needed to kill me," Santana bites. Her jaw aches where it clenches.
(The buzzing pitches to a shrill hum. It feels like the vibration will splinter the cage bars.)
Holliday squirms. "Well—"
"Well you can't," Santana spits, more bitterly than she expects. "I tried."
Her anger, as always, triggers reactions she'd rather avoid: Everyone stares at her. It makes her skin crawl.
(It makes her skin crawl.)
"I got upset," she admits, pitch climbing as the fear and panic seep out of the memory. "I didn't see a way out. So I put a bullet in my mouth and the other girl spit it out."
Santana shudders, but stares hard at each person in turn, daring them to question her integrity: her humanity. She doubts they'd have anything new to say.
"So I put it behind me," she manages, when no one says anything. She notices Brittany holding her breath. "I tried to focus on—on helping people," she says, choking on a lump in her throat, "and I was good, I was actually living a sort of life, and then you drag me back into this—this freak show and put everyone on this ship at risk. I didn't want to come in the first place, remember?"
(Snix pounds at her ribs until they ache.)
Santana glares hard at Quinn. "I didn't even have time to pack a toothbrush," she accuses with an incredulous laugh. Quinn looks away. Brittany breathes out. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Fabray? You wanna know how I stay calm?"
(The knot in her throat feels like Snix's fist.)
"Dr. Lopez."
Santana snaps her eyes to Holliday, who's staring at something waist-high. "What?" Santana snaps.
"Put down the scepter," says Finn from behind Holliday.
A glance confirms it. The gem glows; the gold shaft feels heavy in her fingers.
One of the tracking monitors beeps: a confirmed hit. Santana falters and puts the scepter back on the glass table. "Sorry, kids," she says halfheartedly, crossing over to the monitor. "Looks like you don't get to see my party trick after all."
Sam cuts in and says the Tesseract belongs on Asgard, though the indifference on Holliday's face indicates he may be late to the negotiating table on that one.
"I'm going after it," Brittany announces immediately.
Finn catches her arm as she turns to leave. "You're not going alone," he counters, frowning.
"I'm going wherever I damn well please," Brittany seethes, wrenching her arm from his grip.
Finn leans in her face again. "Put on the suit. Let's find out."
"I'm not afraid of you, old man." Brittany bares her teeth.
"Put on the suit," Finn grits.
The match on the monitor shows the Tesseract is in New York. The Tesseract is somewhere in Pierce Tower. Santana's jaw drops; she breathes, "Oh my god," and then the bomb goes off.
Glass breaks. It digs into Santana's palms and the backs of her hands; her right cheek, when she lands face-down.
The breath blows out of her.
(The cage creaks.)
Her ribs and thighs and cheekbone all punch back in pain, the first tingling aches spreading quickly.
(The other girl reaches out from the inside. She presses outward.)
"We're okay," says a voice beside her. Santana cracks her eyes open. Blond hair.
"We're okay," the voice repeats, and Santana's heart sinks. Not Brittany. Quinn.
(Snix bends the bars.)
Santana squeezes her eyes shut and grits her teeth. Her hands clench into fists.
(The first bar breaks.)
Santana moans mournfully as the pain in her abdomen quadruples. It feels like fingers are digging into the bruises from the inside.
(Snix smiles grimly.)
"Dr. Lopez?" says Quinn. Her voice sounds far away. "Think, Santana. You've gotta fight it."
The words barely register. Pain rips through her like knife-slashes of lightning.
(Snix is the fighter.)
"We're gonna be okay," Quinn pushes. Santana rocks back on her heels, arms stretched out long and tired before her, and Quinn chants, "We will get out of this. You will walk away. We're gonna be fine. You'll be fine."
(The second bar snaps.)
"Fuck you," Santana whimpers, a strangled shout, as the other girl crawls out from the inside, like a demon crawling out of a grave.
(The pain is unbelievable. First her bones grow too quickly, then her muscles: a tug of war. The pain wins over everything else.)
The green is coming out.
(The green is coming out.)
Santana shouts—cries—and everything goes dark.
It's always the same dream.
In a white room, Santana stands beside an examining table, waiting for the doctor. She peels her jacket off first, hanging it carefully over the arm of the chair beside the scale. She unbuttons her dress shirt, slowly; by the last button, she can see her knuckles are swollen and bloody. Red stains the cuffs when she pulls the shirt off.
Her shoes and socks come next. She drops her trousers to her ankles. She steps out of them and catches sight of herself in the mirror. She's not green or monstrous, just bruised and bloody. Her body looks small and thin.
A paper dress lays across the examining table. Santana reaches to unhook her bra, but when it falls to the floor, she finds she's wearing all her clothes again.
The familiarity feels almost comforting. Santana begins the process again, careful of her aching body and her clean, crisp clothes.
The doctor never comes.
It's always the same dream.
You fell out of the sky.
You fell out of the sky.
"You fell out of the sky."
Santana scrunches her face, frowning in confusion and discomfort and disorientation. Her body doesn't hurt the way it did in the dream, or when she fell through the glass on the ship.
The ship. Quinn. Santana drags herself upward and leans her hands on her knees, distantly surprised when her elbows touch skin. She opens her eyes and remembers: the backup clothes, designed to stretch, just in case. One experience of total and utter exposure was more than enough for this lifetime.
She sits in a crater in a pile of rubble. It looks like a Black-Eyed Susan with the Hershey's Kiss plucked out; she sits in the thumbprint.
Her head aches.
(Snix snickers contentedly.)
An old man in a security uniform stands to the side, looking at her. She squints at him in the harsh light. "Did—did I hurt anybody?" she asks timidly.
The man shrugs. "Ain't nobody here to hurt," he replies with a smile.
Her breath releases. "Lucky," she says. Her voice is hoarse.
"Or good aim," the man says, shrugging easily. "You were awake when you fell."
Santana's eyes widen and she glances at him anxiously. "You—saw?"
He nods, almost proud. "The whole thing. Right through the ceiling. Big and green and hollering like a hungry newborn. Here," he adds, tossing a pile of clothes toward her.
Santana blushes at the kindness. They're men's clothes, but small enough to fit her. She tugs the jeans on over the black spandex underwear.
"I figured they wouldn't fit you 'til you shrunk back down to regular size," the man says, strangely nonchalant.
"Thank you," Santana says hesitantly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The man tilts his head while Santana stands to fasten the pants. She tugs the t-shirt on over her bra. "You an alien?" asks the man, startling her so she gets caught in the neck and arms of the shirt.
"An alien?" she gasps, fighting with the fabric until it sits properly. She looks at him.
"From outer space," he says impatiently. "An alien."
Santana shakes her head before she finds her voice. "N—no, not an alien," she answers, realizing the shirt's backwards and tugging her arms in to twist the shirt around.
The man leans against a protruding block of wood and clicks his tongue. "Well, then, miss, you've definitely got a condition."
It turns out the other girl landed closer to the city than Santana suspected. Only when she's straddling the security guard's rust bucket of a motorcycle does she realize she could just walk away.
"Something bad's happening, isn't it?" asks the man warily.
Santana bites her lips and nods. Her left thigh quivers against the bike when she reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I have to help them," she says when the guard just stands there.
He looks at her critically. "Who's 'them'? Pals of yours?"
"Not—not really," she says, frowning. "Just—the only other people who can help."
He nods seriously. His gaze drifts over her shoulder; Santana twists on the bike and almost falls over when she sees the blue funnel opening up in the sky.
"Shit," she whispers. "Shit, shit, shit—" She looks down at the bike, trying to figure out how to start it up.
"Here, like this," says the guard, stepping closer to help her with the clutch. Once the engine blusters into life, he nods toward the city and points. "Take this road most of the way, but you'll have to turn right when you get close to the highway so you can get on the bridge."
With a gulp, Santana walks the bike backward to aim down the road. "Thank you," she says suddenly. The guard smiles and she smiles back. "For everything, I mean. I'll pay you back for—"
"Don't," he says, shaking his head. "If you don't get outta here now, neither of us is gonna be around to worry about debt, anyhow."
Santana bites her lips. She wants to say more—to insist—but.
(But.)
When she squints, she can see moving figures swooping out of the hole in the sky. She revs the motorcycle and heads down the road.
I'll let you out to help them.
(The other girl rumbles.)
Lots of tasty violence in it for you. Army of alien monsters, full of squishy parts.
(Nothing. Snix grips the bars of her cage.)
More fun than chasing Quinn, or—
Suddenly, Santana jolts, nearly falling off the motorcycle before she catches herself with a shallow turn. Quinn was there, during the last change; Santana gulps and hopes, tentatively, that Quinn made it out okay.
(Snix smirks at her, darkly satisfied.)
Santana scowls and wonders what possessed her to try to bargain with her worse half. "Fuck," she whispers into the wind, "you make me so—"
(Snix grins wider and clenches the bars.)
Santana grips the handlebars.
The city looks like shit. Between the glass and debris on the road and the age of her borrowed motorcycle, Santana nearly falls three different times. Her grip gets tighter and tighter on the handlebars as she ducks flying aliens and sideswipes upturned cars.
It's also her first time riding a motorcycle half a century old.
When she follows the trail of dead aliens into the heart of the city, she immediately recognizes the ragtag cluster of costumes. As if on cue, the motorcycle sputters to an anticlimactic death between two lumps of smoldering detritus, and Santana waddles to a stop several yards from the others, who look about as dusty and ragged as the city around them.
Quinn—alive!—Sam, and a tall Asian guy with a plastic longbow turn immediately toward her. Finn, decked out in his flag outfit and topped with a little blue hood, turns a second after, when he realizes no one is listening to him.
A little part of Santana sinks when she sees Brittany isn't with them.
Santana dismounts awkwardly—the bike has no kickstand, and falls flat on its side the second she lets go—and shuffles toward them in her outsize shoes.
"So," Santana says, shoving her hands in her pockets and lifting her shoulders. "This all seems… horrible."
Quinn comes to a stop, closest to her, and crosses her arms. "I've seen worse," she says, raising an eyebrow.
Santana bites her lip. "Sorry."
"No—" Quinn's lips twist into a small smile. "We could use a little worse, I think."
(The other girl grins and stamps her feet.)
"Pierce," says Finn, surprising and confusing Santana until he touches an earpiece in his hood, "we got her. Just like you said."
Santana's mouth drops open a little, full of questions, but a half-second later, an enormous scaled eel makes a clumsy flying turn around a building several blocks down. It screeches, long and loud; Santana squints at the shape preceding it and finds herself smiling to recognize Brittany in her renowned red and gold Iron Maiden suit.
A voice behind her—probably the tall guy she doesn't recognize—says, "I don't see how that's a party," presumably into the earpiece comm channel.
Santana glances back at them: Sam grips his hammer; tall guy grips his bow; Finn screws on his constipation face; Quinn touches the gun at her hip. As if in slow motion, Santana turns back to face the oncoming eel monster.
(Snix is strangely calm. She touches the latch on the cage door, waiting for the warden to bring the key.)
"Lopez," says Finn.
Santana twists and raises an eyebrow at him.
He bites his lips. "Now might be a good time to get upset."
Santana chuckles. "Now you tell me," she says as she takes a step away from them, toward the catastrophe.
(Snix stands at attention when the key turns.)
"I'm serious," Finn insists, "time to get angry if you—"
"I'm always angry," Santana calls over her shoulder.
Her spine twinges as the first change starts.
(Snix slams the door open. As always, the bones grow first.)
Her muscles tear to catch up. What starts as a high wail comes out a low, pained grunt.
The green is coming out.
(The green is coming out.)
Everything goes dark.
It's always the same dream.
In a white room, Santana stands beside an examining table, waiting for the doctor. She peels her jacket off first, hanging it carefully over the arm of the chair beside the scale. She unbuttons her dress shirt, slowly; by the last button, she can see her knuckles are swollen and bloody. Red stains the cuffs when she pulls the shirt off.
Her shoes and socks come next. She drops her trousers to her ankles. She steps out of them and catches sight of herself in the mirror. She's not green or monstrous, just bruised and bloody. Her body looks small and thin.
A paper dress lays across the examining table. Santana reaches to unhook her bra, but when it falls to the floor, she finds she's wearing all her clothes again.
The familiarity feels almost comforting. Santana begins the process again, careful of her aching body and her clean, crisp clothes.
The doctor never comes.
It's always the same dream.
Then the door opens.
It feels like a dream: all images, no actions. Iron Maiden falling out of the sky.
The white room.
Brittany's hard armor, clutched to her chest, cradled in heavy green arms.
The chair beside the scale.
Sam tears off the mask. Brittany's blank expression and closed eyes.
The white room.
(Snix thunders.)
The team's helping itself to an ambulance's supplies when Santana wakes, curled up in the caved-in hood of a car.
"Hey," says someone above her. Santana squints up into the sunlight and finds the one face not beside the ambulance: Brittany, helmet perched on her hip, blond hair spun in backlit gold. Brittany is smiling at her.
"Wh… what…" Santana braces her palm against the metal below her and winces at the stiffness of her body. She touches her forehead—partially just to check it's still intact—and hisses when moving presses a glass shard into her leg.
"I was wondering how long you'd take to come around," Brittany says, oddly cheerful considering how badly beaten everyone looks. Behind her, Santana can see Quinn and her archer friend taping gauze pads to their wounds.
Everything feels fast and muddled. Santana feels strangely quiet, despite the sirens shrieking past them. She touches her heart and listens inside herself.
(Nothing. The other girl sleeps soundly.)
"I brought you some clothes," Brittany says. She holds out a little bundle of folded fabric and Santana blinks slowly until she realizes she's wearing the SHIELD-grade underwear set again.
A blush spreads instantly over her cheeks and Santana forces herself upright when she grabs the clothes. "Thanks," she says throatily, tugging jeans from the bottom of the pile and yanking them up her legs. She shimmies her hips against the car to get the waistband over her hips. Brittany watches every movement attentively; Santana just about swallows her tongue at the look of Brittany's eyes.
Santana clears her throat. Brittany just smiles a little and watches Santana's hands spreading the t-shirt across her knees. "Where'd you get these?" Santana asks, mostly to distract Brittany.
"I made Finn grab 'em from some store on our way up the street," Brittany says, glancing into Santana's eyes for a second.
"You stole them?" Santana asks. She pulls the shirt over her head and tugs it down over her sports bra to hide her body from Brittany's warm stare.
Brittany smiles. "Look around. You think somebody's gonna miss them?"
A quick survey of the disarray around them proves Brittany's point. "Guess not," Santana mumbles, surprised to find socks still sitting beside her on the hood. She's about to ask, but Brittany reaches down and produces a pair of sneakers with a proud grin. Santana smiles sheepishly, brushes off the soles of her feet, and tugs the socks on.
"So, I guess we did it?" asks Santana awkwardly. The shoes are a suspiciously accurate fit.
"Absofruitly," Brittany says with a grin. Santana blinks and offers another tentative smile. Brittany tucks Santana's hair behind her ear and emphasizes, "We all did it."
Brittany's fingertips feel like fire. Or electricity.
(The other girl still sleeps. Maybe these really are butterflies.)
"Anything you wanna bring me up to speed on?" Santana asks, with the same trepidation her college friends used to wear when asking about blackout-drunk shenanigans.
Brittany's smile softens and her eyes grow deep. It makes Santana nervous.
Brittany reaches out again and traces the shell of Santana's ear. "You saved my life," she says, her deep look belying her habitual cocky grin.
"She did?" croaks Santana.
The grin melts and Brittany's eyes shine, like they're wet. Brittany leans closer and cradles Santana's jaw. "No, you did," she whispers.
They're about to kiss when Sam ruins it. "Come on, let us find food," he calls.
Brittany smiles serenely, brushes her thumb over Santana's cheek, and perks up to face Sam. "You better mean shawarma," she announces, holding her hand out to help Santana up out of Snix's car-nest. "'Cause I was serious."
"Shawarma?" Santana asks, stumbling off the hood and trailing Brittany to the ambulance.
"Yeah," Brittany says, grabbing Santana's hand. "I saw a food joint with a sign in the window. I dunno what it is, but I wanna try it."
"We have more pressing matters," Quinn sighs. She gestures at Finn, who's holding his chin with both hands. "Finn busted his jaw, so we need a real medic."
Brittany purses her lips and says nothing. The tall guy sighs. "I'll go grab one," he offers, jogging off around the ambulance to where the emergency workers are tending a clump of civilians.
Santana squeezes Brittany's fingers shyly. Brittany turns to her and Santana makes a small pout, using Brittany's shoulder to block it from Finn's sight.
Brittany grins and squeezes back.
Shawarma turns out to be pretty awesome. It's even better with Brittany's hand on her knee. They sit beside each other and Sam declares it fate that they use opposite hands to eat; Quinn rolls her eyes at him and stares pointedly at the table where she suspects they're holding hands.
Finn looks sullenly at their food, bound by doctor's orders and several wires to keep his mouth closed.
When Sam makes a scene by smashing his cup on the floor, Brittany leans in and presses a quick kiss to Santana's cheek. "Thanks for socking Finn, by the way," Brittany whispers.
Santana spits her water back in her glass. "What?"