Character(s)/Pairing(s): Past fem!Barret/male!Myrna (Barrest's canon wife); Marlene, Tifa, Cloud (mentioned), Denzel.
Warnings: Genderbending, some cursing (eh, it's Barret).
Summary: AU. Barret doesn't look much like mother material, she knows it. But she's Marlene's Mom all the same, and yes, she's a woman, thank you so much for noticing.
Notes: In part inspired by the reading of this fic, which made me want to write genderbent!Barret: s/5597269/1/Her-Catastrophe
Of Feminity or Lack Thereof
Most people tend to think she ain't no mother material when they see her with Marlene. Sometimes, Barret could almost agree. Almost.
True enough, they make a strange picture, her little girl and her. Marlene is so little, so soft, so fait skinned, so well-behaved and smiling and hopeful and polite. One would expect her Mom to be just like her (and Goddess, Eleanor was like that, and Marlene looks just like her…). For such a pretty little girl, there should be a pretty mother, a true lady, and Barret…
Well, she's no soft, small, pretty woman, she's not a lady by any mean of the word. Just take a look at her: dark skin-tone aside, which is glaring fact Marlene and her aren't technically related, she's almost two meters tall, full of hard, big muscles, she curses a lot – though she tries not to when her little girl is near; there're things Marlene doesn't need to pick up from her momma – and she's not even going to speak of the gun she's got grafted where her right hand used to be. She's got no breasts to speak of, and she binds them tight anyway 'cause bras aren't great when you spend your time doing physical labor or fighting and she never cared much for fashion anyway.
Eck, most people who first meet her assume she's a man, for Goddess' sake! Sometimes it amuses her, sometimes it frustrates her, and sometimes she's plain thankful for it. Her looks made sure no sick, twisted, perverted-bastards like the ones working for Don Corneo ever try to recruit her to work in the seedier part of Wall Market or the rest of Midgar's slums – ain't 'cause Sector 6 got the most famous there isn't a couple of brothels in every Sectors under or above the Plate. Sector 7 got least than most though, so Barret thought it wasn't the worst place to raise a kid in Midgar – even if tactical considerations for AVALANCHE missions had come in play too.
On that aspect, she's luckier than Tifa, who's a tough girl alright, but pretty and girly, and had to break quite a few fingers/wrists/arms/legs/teeth before some persistent fuckers got the message across and backed off. Barret may or may not have helped with shooting a few of them, making them new assholes. They must have made their point clear, 'cause sure enough, the would-be pimps had deserted the Seventh Heaven faster than Nibel wolves on a run.
So yeah, she can understand why people who haven't realized it right away startle when they double-check and realize she hasn't got a dick. Lady-like or even feminine, her? Goddess, her old pals at Corel would laugh 'til they choke – those who're still alive and not resenting her existence anyway.
Eh, what did people expect, 'xactly? Corel, even before Shinra messed up the place, wasn't full of jobs opportunities. There was the mine and… the mine. Men jobs, sure, but when you got sick parents then later a sick spouse to take care off, you ain't no choice but go for them, 'cause a part-time job at the inn or at the item or weapon shops isn't going to be enough to put food on the table. Barret had spend her life mining for coal, and if she was already a hard, though girl to begin with, then a couple of years working with Dyne and the other men had toughened her out even more to the point they used to joke about her leather hide when her Myron was a shrinking violet.
Not that any of it was Myron's fault to begin with. He had been the best husband she could ever hope for – and the only one, really. They had been childhood friends, Barret and he. A soft-spoken, cheerful man who would have wanted nothing more but to be the one digging in the coal so his wife could stay home a bit and they could think about, perhaps, raise a family someday. Barret wouldn't have say 'no', exactly. She had, kinda, wanted children of her own someday, but first off there was the house to pay for, and they needed to save money for medicine and then save for the eventual kids, and business wasn't working so well at time. Still, Myron had hoped, and persisted, and Barret had really wanted to just throw caution through the window and do it.
Except, Myron had often been ill, and unable to do much but take care of the house and help around by doing odd jobs. Not his fault at all. He had had weak lungs ever since childhood, something doctors had said came from the coal dust and the fumes from Corel. They had never thought about moving away; Corel had been their home, their world. That was kinda why Barret had wanted to go along with Shinra when they spoke of constructing the Mako Reactor. She had thought, with Mako, less coal, and perhaps Myron'll get better and they'll eventually get a tyke to raise, like Dyne and Eleanor who just had had Marlene.
Fat lot of chance it got them, isn't it?
That said… yeah, people were in for a shock when Marlene introduced her as her Mom. Most of the time, people tended to think Tifa was Marlene's momma – and in a way, it would have made more sense, she supposed, and it didn't hurt half as much as it once did when people got mistaken. She sure hadn't hit anyone as hard as she had Wedge when he first got mistaken, on his first meeting with her precious baby. She cursed a bit less, too. And one time, she had decided to plainly state the fact she was a freaking woman by opening her shirt largely so the idiot who had started to ask Marlene if 'she was sure the tall, mean-looking guy' was female got a good look at her small her very existing boobs.
The guy had gulped, eyed the gun on her arm, gulped again, mumbled an excuse and run off to part unknown after throwing a handful of gils on the counter. There was almost the triple of the single drink he had ordered. Tifa had grumbled about Barret scaring another client, took her due and solemnly gave the rest to Marlene for safekeeping. Her little girl had nodded just as solemnly, saying she was going to save it.
That had been cute, and made Barret proud of her girl.
Incidents like that were far in between, but there had been others. For example, there had been some very awkward and rather angry-filled moments were a couple of loudmouths had thought Tifa and her were a couple of dykes raising Marlene – not that Barret found anything particularly wrong with lesbians, oh no, she just didn't like being taken for one, and Tifa didn't either. Barret had all been for shooting the lil' bastards and would have had Tifa not grabbed her by the arm, made her sit back and mumbled sometimes, there were subtler ways to make people pay.
Though Barret hardly understood how spiking the loudmouths' drinks and then throwing them in the trash after getting a few good hits on them was subtle, not that she'd be telling Tifa. The barmaid had looked very pleased with herself, and honestly, the rest of AVALANCHE had gotten a good laugh out of it, so no harm done, right?
Well, in fact, yes, there was harm done, but not physical one, and not to someone who had taken a sucker punch. No, no, the harm, surprisingly enough, or perhaps not, was done to Marlene.
Had it been physical hurt, Barret would have raged, run hammock and shoot the sorry son-of-bitch who had dared to threaten/hit/make her baby cry, going all Mama Bear on him and making him face unholy wrath of the Heavens. She may or may have done that once or twice, not that anyone was the wiser about it (and she still wondered if she ought to shoot Cait sith or rather, Reeve Tuesti for having taken her little girl hostage, even if the guy was on their side now).
But no. It was a different kind of hurt. One Barret felt a bit helpless against.
Marlene felt hurt and didn't understand why people had to do a double-take when meeting her Mom, or why they always thought it was Auntie Tifa and not Barret Wallace in all her glory, and Barret had been hard-pressed to give her a answer, fumbling for words and explanations about the fact people didn't think much of tall, flat-chested, muscled females who always carried firearms due to the fact it was grafted to their body. People just expected mommies to be small, delicate little things who spend their time baking pies, hanging laundry to dry… or serving drinks behind a bar. Mommies didn't lead anti-Shinra groups in terrorist acts such as Reactor-bombing. Man, it would certainly have been easier if she had been a man. There would have been no misunderstanding then.
Marlene, thankfully, got the gist of it. Nowadays, she pouted or glared at the offenders who didn't believe her or mistook her Mom for a man – and it was kinda cute, to see her glare, when she was about as threatening as a newborn kitten. It was less cute when Barret caught her making rude gestures behind people back and she had scowled her and sent her to her room for that, because little girls ought to have more manners.
Never mind she probably picked some of said gestures – and perhaps a few words she knew better than to repeat - from her ol' Mom.
Marlene obeyed. She was always a good girl like that. Too good for someone like Barret. If the world was a fair place, Marlene should have been growing up in Corel with her real parents, with sweet Eleanor as a Mommy and a sane, proud Dean as her Daddy, and Barret would have been her Aunty at the most. But Eleanor was dead, Dyne was dead, and there was only Barret left, and even if she felt a tad guilty about it sometimes, when the little girl snuggled against her, it never lasted long. At least, the guilt concerning Corel didn't last long.
The one about letting Marlene alone too often, too long? It nagged at her heart. Some Mom she was, not being always here for her kid. But the Planet needed some savin' at first, and then once the Sephiroth/Jenova/Meteor Crisis was over, Corel had needed to be rebuild, and Barret needed to atone for some of the things she did when leading AVALANCHE, for the mistakes she had done, the death she had caused. Barret wasn't doing it for herself only, though, the rebuilding stuff. She just wanted Marlene to have a brighter future. She was doing that for her, she reasoned. It still didn't help her feel better when, each time she came back to Seventh Heaven, she found Marlene a bit taller, a bit more grown up.
She was missing out on her daughter's life, she knew it. It… couldn't be helped, as much as it pained her to say so. She could only hope things progressed faster so she could finally stay home with her little girl once for all. At least, she had the consolation to know Marlene was taken good care of by Tifa, and by Cloud when he wasn't running right and left on that motorbike of him, doing deliveries. The old team also dropped by from time to time – as well as that red-haired punk/Shinra dog when he wanted a drink.
Nowadays, there was even a new addition to the new Seventh Heaven, from what Barret had learned. A kid sick with Geostigma Cloud had brought home one day and who had stayed at the bar ever since. Orphan from Sector Seven. Denzel, she thought he was called. Eh. Good for him. Orphans needed a roof over their heads, and Tifa was more of a Mom she would ever be, Barret supposed. Not that she would admit it aloud. Marlene could do with a comrade to play with, and Barret was curious about what the kid was like, if she was honest. She had yet to meet him, having been in Corel for three months now. And now, as she neared Seventh Heaven, as she picked in the air the giggles of Marlene and those of another child, she couldn't wait to see the new addition.
There was still a little thing Barret worried about, though.
Marlene. And that Denzel boy's first reaction when he'd see Barret face to face for the first time. See, her Marlene was quite proud of her ol' Mom, and she had more than one got frosty and stopped being friend with kids who had disrespected Barret in some way, 'specially those who thought she was a man at first. As far as Barret knew, Marlene and that Denzel boy were good friends, and the tall woman hoped she wouldn't be the cause of a rift between the two.
So there was a bit of worry nagging at her heart as, her bag slung over her shoulder, she reached the door of the bar. There was Marlene, sitting on the floor, her white skirt neatly arranged around her, pink ribbon in her hairs, looking over a book with a nine-or-so years old boy with shaggy light brown hairs and blue eyes. The two children looked up as they heard the door open, and Marlene's face broke into a delighted smile that warmed Barret to the bones.
"That's my Mom! Denzel, that's my Mom! Say 'hi' to her!"
Barret tensed. Here it was. The moment of truth. The kid blinked, looked curiously at Barret for a moment, head tilted to the side. After a moment, he started to slowly smile and turned toward Marlene.
"She looks awesome! Hi ma'am," he added, a bit shyly but looking at her with some sort of awe she hadn't seen in any eyes but Marlene's so far.
Marlene beamed and chuckled. "Yes, she is!"
And with that, the woman felt her shoulders ease. Eh, there might be some hope for that boy yet…
End