River wasn't really the power armor and miniguns type. The suit was flashy and loud, and it did nothing for her figure, which was small, and far more suited to staying quiet and out of sight. She liked her enemies to be dead before they even realized she was there; it was one of the reasons she and MacCready worked so well together. But she knew better than most the importance of sending the right message. And sometimes to send the right message, you needed the right ink.
Nothing says 'Leave MacCready alone' like a full suit of T60 power armor. And the minigun was the perfect salutation to end it off. Warm regards, General River Bautista.
So that was how River found herself stomping across half the Commonwealth in enough metal to melt down and repurpose into a charter bus, her ears numb from the constant whir and thrum of the power armor around her. Her boots crushed dirt and dry grass, leaving heavy foot prints behind. MacCready led the way for once, and she appreciated the opportunity to watch him work. She was always the one running around in the front, trying to blaze a trail of silent vengeance - and he was always the one hanging back to clean up after her when she inevitably charged in a little too quickly. He moved slower than she did, methodically, scanned the horizon every few paces; she wondered how long that had been a habit of his, and if he even realized he was doing it. Again she experienced that strange combination of admiration and envy toward him. And, getting harder and harder to ignore, the unmistakable burn of desire, twisting in her gut, pooling like heat between her thighs.
She blew her growing bangs out of her face with a puff of breath, hefting the minigun up higher against her hip. The power armor handled all of the weapon's weight, but she was forced to keep her arms in the same position the whole way from Sanctuary.
The highway loomed ominously overhead, another hulking, decayed monument to what had once been human civilization. They moved through the darkness of its cast shadow, until MacCready gestured her over to the cover of a broad, cement support beam.
"We're close," he whispered, peering around the edge of the pillar. "There's usually a few on the ground, keeping watch. I can see them," he added quietly after a beat. He glanced over his shoulder up at her. "You're a little noisy."
"Think you can handle a few little Gunners on your own?"
He was already attaching a suppressor to the barrel of his sniper rifle, a smirk on his face. "Watch me."
I'd like to, she thought as he disappeared around the edge of the pillar. She leaned back against the solid concrete, resting the end of her minigun on the ground to stretch her arms out straight, but keeping hold of the handles just in case. Over the ambient twitter of wildlife and the distant crackle of a campfire, she listened to the sound of his quiet footsteps fade away. Then, after a long stretch of time, she heard muffled gunfire from his sniper rifle: one shot, then another, then three in rapid succession. Then silence. She held her breath, waiting, listening, straining to catch any sound that might indicate they'd been discovered.
And then MacCready reappeared at her side, a breathless smile on his face. He reloaded his rifle with sure fingers and removed the silencer from the barrel; they wouldn't need it once they got up to the overpass.
She took in the exhilaration and resolve in his expression, the arrogance that always flashed in his gaze. "Show-off."
His laughter was absent, distracted as he checked his pockets for extra ammunition. "Only 'cause you like it so much," he shot back, as easily as any other witty remark he'd tossed her way.
"I do," River agreed in a low voice. Thought there might be a bit of a flirt in you, MacCready.
Her appreciative tone must have made him realize what he said, and she could see the flush creep up his cheeks even in the darkness. He cleared his throat and jerked his head toward the camp he'd just cleared out. "Come on, let's get going."
She moved as quickly as she could in the clunky armor. Through the darkness, she could make out the faded yellow of a small elevator. MacCready waited until she'd boarded the rickety metal to step on carefully beside her. He held his hand suspended over the faint red glow of the button, glancing up at her face. "You ready for this, boss?"
Her teeth flashed white when she grinned. "Press the button, MacCready."
His thumb depressed the button and the elevator jerked reluctantly to life with a metallic squeal. River hitched the minigun up against her hip, breathing deeply to calm her racing heartbeat. The anticipation before a battle was always the hardest to conquer, that mingling combination of excitement and terror. She thought back to the brief moment she'd spent with Winlock, the hatred that rolled off of him in waves, and imagining that malice anywhere near MacCready summoned a rage that tore through her like thunder. She wasn't the same scared little woman that stumbled out of Vault 111 and withered at the sight of her life, her world, in ruins. She was General River Bautista now, and she would put down any threats to the people she cared about. Even if she didn't entirely understand that care or what it might entail yet.
The elevator finally came to a grinding halt at the overpass. They crept over to a blown-out car and ducked behind it, thankfully unnoticed by the lone gunner standing guard. MacCready rested his rifle over the hood of the car, pressing his eye to the scope.
"Is here good?" she asked him quietly.
"For now."
River nodded, hands tightening in their hydraulic gloves around the bars of her minigun. "Good. Wait 'til it's safe to move up." She lowered her bag to the ground and searched through it for the Vault-Tec lunchbox where she kept her explosives. Once her belt was fully stocked with grenades, she grabbed her helmet from where it hung on her back and pulled it down over her head. After a small hiss of compressed air, the display lit up inside the helmet.
River was in business.
MacCready shook his head, the briefest smile on his face. "Go raise some hell, boss."
She approached the camp with steady, measured steps, squeezing the trigger on her minigun. The unmistakable whir of the barrels rolling to life echoed down the length of the overpass. The gunner standing guard spotted her and shouted for back-up just before the spray of her bullets mowed him down.
River's laughter rang in her helmet as she advanced on the gunners, all scrambling for their weapons and armor. She reached for her belt and grabbed a grenade, pulling the pin and tossing it into the middle of their camp. At least two men got caught in the blast, which filled the area with smoke and debris.
Bullets whizzed past her, the ones that hit true pinging uselessly against her armor. Thank god for Sturges and the magic that man works with a wrench and blowtorch. MacCready's sniper sounded occasionally behind her, dropping gunners like clockwork.
River had never felt so powerful before. She proceeded on the gunners like a vengeful spirit, delivering 5mm retribution. She tried to keep count of the men that fell under the hailstorm of bullets, but lost track once she hit the double digits.
In the distance, she heard the familiar build-up of an assaultron's laser charging. The red glow of its face was difficult to track amongst the chaos of moving bodies. She threw another grenade into the fray, backing slowly out of the camp. "MacCready!" she hollered back at him once she was past the guard tower. "Assaultron incoming!"
The machine hunted her aggressively, breaking out of the smoke left behind from her grenade like some kind of horror film. The bullets from her minigun didn't even slow it down.
"The legs!" she heard MacCready shout from behind her. "Shoot its legs!"
Her minigun might as well have been a water hose for all it did against the assaultron. MacCready scored a shot off on one of its legs, bringing it down a few paces away from her. It scrabbled toward her on its elbows, its hands clamping around one of her ankles. She tried to shake it loose, but it held fast and started emitting a frantic beeping noise.
River just enough time to hold an arm up, instinctively, over her face. And then the assaultron exploded.
MacCready watched River fall back against a concrete barrier with a deafening clash that rang in his ears. The assaultron was a smoking wreckage of circuits and metal on the ground and River wasn't moving, why the fuck wasn't she moving? He put his eye to the scope, measured his breathing despite the panic that crept like venom under his skin. He picked off a couple more gunners that were shooting their way, but bullets continued to come from that direction and he didn't have an angle on whoever was behind them.
Finally the bulky form of her power armor sat up, bracing an arm against the scorched surface of the barrier next to her. She staggered to her feet.
Fuck, she's alive. Fuck, fuck, okay, focus, fuck.
He quickly reloaded and then provided some cover fire so she had a chance to reorient herself. He wasn't sure how much of the blast the suit had absorbed, if it had been enough to keep her safe inside.
River retrieved her minigun and reloaded it, a good sign at least, movements tight with fury, or maybe pain. He couldn't tell from here. She didn't wait around to let him know. Once the minigun was reloaded, she stormed right back past the guard post into the camp.
"Jesus, River!" he hissed. She drew enough fire that he could safely follow after her, pressing himself against a makeshift wall toward the entrance. He could hear her around the corner, the hydraulic swing of her arms as she aimed the minigun and the thundering churn of its fire.
"Grenade!" she cried, backing away. She retreated a few steps and braced herself when the blast went off. He heard her scream, a frayed sound, pained and enraged even through the filter of her helmet, and then the clatter of her minigun starting up again. A series of masculine shouts followed from further down the camp, followed by another explosion - one of River's grenades this time.
She backtracked to stand near him, the minigun swinging from one arm. Her head turned in his direction, where he had ample cover but no shot on the gunners, then behind her to see a metal desk. She lifted her leg and kicked it over. It tumbled onto its side with a loud crash. Then she pulled the minigun back up and continued her onslaught, providing cover fire so he could slide into place behind the desk for a better vantage point. Felt a brief wave of unease at how attuned she was to the way he fought, but stuffed the feeling out of the way so he could focus on taking out the last few men.
River favored one of her legs as she started to advance on the gunners again, the armor there shattered and broken. Dark crimson blood was beginning to creep down the fractured metal.
MacCready swallowed down the frustrating way his heart seemed to stretch tightly in his chest, killed another gunner with the last bullet in the chamber. After reloading and putting his eye back to the scope, he caught sight of glinting metal. Winlock.
She swung the minigun and knocked back a gunner standing in her way, sending him crumpling to the ground. MacCready stammered out awed curse when she lifted her boot and brought it down callously onto the man's head, crushing the metal of his helmet and his skull underneath.
That was . . . new.
It struck him at that moment that this woman was in his corner. She was tearing this gunner camp down to its foundations for him, and nobody had done shit for him since he'd been a child, under Leah's loving, but haphazard care. River had hired him to watch her back, yet here she was, walking through flames and trails of blood to get the gunners off his back.
River made a beeline for Winlock, a barrage of bullets from her minigun making him stumble backward; he could hear the sound of Winlock's shotgun going off in rapid fire. MacCready moved up as quickly as he could, catching a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye: Barnes, coming up behind River with a sledgehammer in hand.
MacCready knelt behind a small table and took aim, sending a bullet through Barnes' temple before he could even get close, and fuck, it was satisfying, watching his body fall dead to the ground.
Meanwhile River had reached Winlock and was bashing her minigun against him like a battering ram, over and over, forcing him further backward. It was insane and dangerous and kind of funny, and he might have been turned on a little as well. There was a lot going on, mentally and emotionally and physically, feelings he didn't have words for. He just froze for a moment at the sight of her like some kind of fierce robot battle princess, jousting with someone to defend his honor - better than any comic book he'd heard of and one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. He wasn't crazy about being the hapless damsel in this situation, especially not for a woman like River, but it was . . . touching, that she was doing this for him.
"MacCready!" she screamed. "Shoot his fucking head!"
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck. He realized after a few moments he was chanting the word out loud, his heart in his throat as he tracked Winlock through his scope. They were too close together, River kept getting in the way; the shot was too risky. But he had to do something -
Winlock's shotgun was tearing at River's armor with sharp, jarring blasts, stumbling her back. It was enough space, though, for MacCready to get Winlock's forehead in his scope and with one last shot, he was finally dead. His body swayed, and River staggered out of the way of its fall. The loud clatter of the armor hitting concrete was the last remaining echo of their battle, ringing eerily down the empty overpass.
MacCready was already on his feet, pushing over chairs and a table to get to her. She dropped the minigun abruptly to the ground, as if she couldn't bear the weight of it a moment longer, slumping down onto a knee. One of her hands reached gingerly for the latches of her helmet. The damage looked worse the closer he got, dented metal cracked away in places, exposing the silver frame underneath.
"I got it," he said quickly, reaching around to unfasten her helmet. She was gasping for breath when he pulled it away, her cheeks flushed from exertion. The white silk of her hair was coming loose from its coil, and her eyes were wild, pupils blown out and inky black. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know," she panted, grimacing as she tried to push herself back up onto her feet. "I gotta get out of this fucking thing."
MacCready helped her to her feet and then the armor slid open with the hiss of released air. He was barely there in time to catch her when she crumpled backward out of it. She trembled in his arms, and he prayed, actually prayed, that it was from adrenaline or shock or something simple, something he could fix, because he really couldn't bear to watch this woman die after what she'd just done for him. He eased her down cautiously against the concrete.
River's eyes were shut tight, a crease worrying her forehead. Her left leg was bloodied and burned. He pulled stimpaks from one of his jacket pockets, pressing a shaking hand to the side of her face, so gently he was hardly touching her at all. She opened her eyes slowly, quickly closed them again. Her sigh of relief was like music to his ears when he slid a stimpak into her arm and the medicine entered her system.
"Fuck. You weren't kidding. That was a hell of a fight." Her voice was throaty, like she'd just been fucked, and that really shouldn't have been the thought that crossed his mind but it was, and now it was there in the middle of all the concern for her well-being and the swell of relief that she was alive while Winlock and Barnes were just smoke and ash. She reached for one of his stimpaks and put the plunger end between her teeth, rolling up the left leg of her pants and puffing out pained little breaths. They both groaned at the sight of the burn there. "Fuck," she grunted again when she slid the syringe into the meat of her calf. She tossed the empty stimpak aside and her head fell back, lips spreading eventually into a smile and that curl of laughter.
He fumbled for his cigarettes. "Smoke?"
"Yes, please." She parted her mouth and he placed the filter between her lips, feeling his own mouth go dry as he lit it for her. She watched his face, even when the flame flickered inches from her skin, its reflection dancing in the black of her pupils. After a long drag of smoke that left her mouth in a slow coil, she nodded. "Is that it?" she asked, and her voice was drier now, more parched than sultry, the adrenaline rush fading into fatigue.
MacCready shifted into a more comfortable position across from her, taking stock of his own aches and pains to see what needed to be dealt with, and what could wait to be a pain in the ass later. River would need some time to recover, maybe even a little sleep, though he doubted she'd be able to from the look in her eyes.
"The assaultron blast, like . . . rattled all the bones around in my head." Her tone was distant, detached, but her eyes were alert when they darted over to meet his. "That's probably not good, right?"
"Yeah, that's like super bad for you."
She barked out a laugh, and even that sounded pained. Yet despite her injuries, her expression was pleased. That proud smile still lingered on her face, and Jesus, she should be fucking proud, after a show like that . . . He was struck by the sudden desire to tell her that, to share something with her, he wasn't sure what, just something he actually meant for once.
River ended up speaking first, even if her speech was lilting and languid, perhaps not entirely lucid. "I kinda like it when you patch me up." She popped the last p with a crooked smile, her cigarette dangling, forgotten, between her fingers.
Maybe her half-awake state made him feel confident, the chance she might not remember his boldness later. Or maybe he was grateful, or all the fighting had weakened his normal inhibitions. He smirked at her, watched the brief widening of her eyes in response, because he'd figured out a couple days ago that being an arrogant bastard pleased her in some fucked-up way. That was kind of his MO regardless, so that, at least, was working out for him. "Is that why you keep rushing out into the middle of gunfights?"
Her smile deepened; he could see a flash of white teeth between her lips. "Maybe. Is it working?"
"You're insane. And the weirdest boss I've ever had. And you frustrate the hell out of me. But . . . you stuck your neck out for me, and I don't forget shi-" He groaned in frustration. "I mean, things like that."
River's eyes narrowed at the correction. He was tired of the conversation before it had even started, and almost cut her off when she started to speak, but her first words surprised him into silence.
"My mother never allowed swearing. She didn't believe a woman should swear or drink or stay out late or have sex for pleasure." The last words she said around a coy smile, as if enjoying the way they tasted - or maybe just the way they made his skin burn. "But it, like all of those things, is good for the soul. I don't mind it."
"Believe me, I know. I . . ." really don't want to have this conversation, but I owe you one, and I can't get you out of my head "I made a promise to someone, to clean up my act and try to be a better person."
River studied his face curiously, but thankfully didn't press. She nodded instead toward the corpses and wreckage they'd left behind. "I'm sure this doesn't count."
"No. The things I saw some of those animals do. . ." He shook his head. "This was legitimate. And now that we've taken out this entire waypoint, there's no one left who even knows my name. I'm in the clear." Damn, if that didn't feel good to say. "Think you can make it to Diamond City? We're not far."
She nodded. "Grab what supplies you can."
MacCready got to his feet, craning his neck from side to side to stretch out the stiffness there. "What about the super suit?"
Her eyes swept over the power armor where it stood above her, calculating. "Collateral damage. I'll send some men to retrieve it later, once we're back in Sanctuary. I just can't bear to be in that thing another second." She plucked at the neck of her shirt to cool her flushed skin, and his mind strayed. . . he could close the distance between them in two strides, unwrap her from her clothes like a fucking present, catch the bead of sweat that trailed down her throat between his teeth - Jesus Christ, what the fuck?!
"You're the boss," he said severely, more for himself than for her. The boss. The Boss. Not someone I want to bend over that table and fuck until I can't feel my legs anymore. It would be so easy; she was injured, but he could be gentle- OH MY GOD, keep it together! He turned back, quickly, stumbled away from her on unsteady legs. It was just the adrenaline, finding a different way to put his body on edge now that the danger was over. It was the sound of her laughter, rough and sweet behind him, and the fact that she had just slaughtered twenty men for him. It was the sensation of drowning, over and over again.
It was River.
A storm had rolled in like a cloak of rain and churning clouds over the Commonwealth. The erratic strikes of lightning and the earth-trembling thunder that followed made her skin crawl with anticipation, or maybe some sort of lingering thrill from the gunfire. Her body was sore, but the rain was soothing and familiar; she'd always loved a good storm before the bombs fell, when she could admire them from behind the warmth and comfort of a glass window pane. It was only fitting that she experience them now outside. She was a part of this wasteland now, too, and it was a part of her. It was in the scars all over her body, where the deathclaw had pierced her skin, the two bullets MacCready had pulled out of her.
The man himself was grumpy the whole way to Diamond City. An aversion to getting wet, she gathered from the look on his face and the ill-tempered way he tucked his hands under his armpits. All the little things she learned about him she tucked away with a terrifyingly familiar rush - the thrill of being interested in someone, smiling when they drifted through her thoughts, which was often, Why is he scowling now? What does he dream of at night? What do those hands feel like wandering down my ribs?
They would feel amazing. She knew it without even having experienced it, even if she dreamt of it, longed for it, even as the guilt that followed washed through her and stole the breath from her lungs. It was like she could feel every one of her two hundred some years of not being fucked, bearing down on her, heating the blood in her veins, and it was slowly unraveling her patience and her reason.
They stomped into the Dugout, aching, tired, and soaked to the bone. Trying to ignore the stares she always drew, especially as whispers of her work with the Minutemen made it all the way here to Diamond City, into Travis's stuttering voice on the radio, she shoved the caps at Yefim and marched right past him into the room.
"Room two is yours," he repeated to the empty air that remained, returning to his newspaper.
River was halfway undressed when she heard the door close behind her, and glanced over her shoulder to see MacCready with his hands planted like a child over his face. She couldn't help her laughter. "You are adorable," she told him affectionately.
He sighed from beneath his palms, a heavy, frustrated sound. "You could've given me some warning."
"Just turn around, then. You can't stay in those wet clothes, either. At the risk of sounding like my mother, you'll catch a cold. I won't look, I promise." She hissed in pain when trying to peel her wet pants down over the still raw skin of her leg. "Fuck, that hurts."
"You okay?" His voice sounded concerned, but far away, bouncing off the opposite wall. Over it, she could hear the sound of damp, rustling clothing as he undressed.
"I'll be all right." River pulled her shirt up over her head, tossed it to the side where it landed on the ground with a wet splat. Her bra was completely soaked, leaving behind a wet trail over her breasts when she unfastened it. She hooked her thumbs into the edges of her underwear, but hesitated, listening to MacCready struggling with his wet clothing behind her. Being naked in the same room as him was dangerously close to a few fantasies she'd been torturing herself with, but she wasn't going to subject herself to sleeping in wet underwear for modesty's sake.
She pushed her damp panties to the ground and stepped out of them - in her daydreams, MacCready rips them off of her. One arm curled around her breasts, she poked through her bag with the other one. A small towel was one of the few luxuries she could afford to carry around, for nights such as these. It felt heavenly, drawing the cold rain from her skin, leaving her body blessedly dry. She pulled on a shirt and her sleeping shorts, then fished a bottle of whiskey she'd scavenged from her bag. A few sips filled her with warmth, and she finally felt comfortable again, despite the dull ache of her injuries.
"Okay," MacCready eventually announced with a huff of breath. She chanced a look over her shoulder and still almost groaned at what she saw. His shirt was plain, probably white once, clearly scavenged and just a tad too big for him, but it clung flatteringly to places where the lean musculature of his chest was still wet. He scraped his hands through his wet hair with a casual masculinity that was far too appealing.
She would've liked to have touched him, then; her whole body burned for it. She wondered how long it had been since he'd come, and how quickly she might be able to suck him off. It wasn't fair to MacCready, thinking of him this way, and it was definitely a stupid idea to get herself all worked up like this in the one place she couldn't touch herself.
The whiskey burned on its way down her throat and made her eyes water. At MacCready's questioning look, she twisted the cap shut tight and tossed the bottle at him, watched him catch it with careless ease.
He stared down at it in his hands, rubbed his thumb over the faded label on the front. After a long moment, he lifted his gaze back to hers. "Thanks, River," he said quietly. "I can't tell you what it means to finally have those guys off my back."
"The world needed to be rid of Winlock and Barnes. More importantly, you needed help. You were there for me when I went after Kellogg -"
"You paid me," he reminded her, rolling his eyes. "That's kind of the point of being a hired gun."
River shrugged. "I'm glad we did it. There's no need to thank me."
MacCready scowled, clearly dissatisfied with wrapping things up like that. "How about this?" He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a metal tin. "These are all the caps you paid me to watch your back.
Her lips flattened into a tight line. "MacCready. No."
"I owe you one, and I always repay my debts." Each word was firmer than the last, that familiar tenacity seeping into his tone. "If I pay you back, we're even."
"I don't accept."
"What do you mean, you don't accept?"
"I mean I don't accept! I don't need them. I want you to have them."
"I want you to have them!"
"Well, then, you and I are at an impasse." She curled up onto the bed, pulling the tattered sheet up over her shoulder. She glared back at him across the room. "If I wake up and find those caps in my bag, I'm going to give them away to the first person I see."
MacCready opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again, considering the chances of her following through on that threat. "Fine," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "But I'll find some way to repay you."
River smiled. "I don't doubt it." She rested her head onto the pillow and yawned into the back of her hand. "Sweet dreams, MacCready."
He took a long swig of her whiskey, staring off into the distance. A flush bloomed in crimson up his neck. "Yeah," he agreed in a dry voice. "Night, River."
It was a long time before she fell asleep. When she finally did, her dreams were a fractured disarray of viscera and violence, thickened by that heady lust that always teased at her thoughts. Snatches here and there of blood splatter and screams, then of Nate's body and hands, then the dry gust of wind, crackling with heat and radiation, that had left Boston and her life the ruined remains that they were.
Then MacCready's voice, like some kind of prayer in her head.
Some things you can't let go of. They just stay with you.