The good news is that we're here! The final chapter of arc 1! I'm very excited about the future!
The bad news is there's action in this chapter and I'm very, very bad at writing action. It's one of those things where it's like "this doesn't make sense" and I'm like "you just gotta keep writing so you can get to the fun part." I just want you to know that Morgan is a very bad anti-hero, Morgan is essentially really good at one thing and it's not kicking butt. But I hope you enjoy it regardless :)
Also, the start of this chapter is based on a beautiful commission by my friend, Tumblr user betasuppe. You can find it there by looking up Morgan Lynch or Seth Drake from their page. Highly recommend checking it out and maybe reblogging if you didn't come to this fic from there already lol
"What's that?" Seth appeared behind Morgan, causing the latter to jump.
"Just running test simulations for my open house project," Morgan said nervously. She was nervous because this was a lie and Seth was really good at figuring out when Morgan was lying. Fortunately, Seth was overcome by wistfulness and didn't notice.
"I wish I could participate in the open house this year. Those wings are the best work I've done in a long time. Especially with the new updates," Seth said. Recently Seth had found a way to make the wings lighter and more compact so that Morgan could theoretically hide them under a normal outfit and be able to pull them out whenever fight or flight was necessary. Once Seth figured out how to make a weapon more compact and effective than the baseball bat, they'd really be in business.
"Your real final project was pretty nice too," Morgan said, smiling warmly at Seth.
"Thanks, babe. Oh! You've got to see this!" Seth hoisted a heavy box onto the table while Morgan hid her secret project.
"What's in the box?" Once again Seth was packing up to move out, but this time they were moving on together, having settled in court with the grocery store and now able to afford their new dream home. Sort of. It really wasn't anything fancy, just a two-bedroom with a basement lair and a garden. And all the packing had led to the discovery of this mysterious box.
"It's all those old scrapbooks your mom made! I mean some of them are just you as a baby, so, lame, but once we hit middle school me or Sadie are in like every other photo."
"Of course you are," Morgan laughed, "You're my best friend. You're like, my whole world."
Seth blushed a little and pulled out the newest-looking scrapbook, "And behold! Our crowning achievement… High school!"
Morgan snorted, "I think you and I remember high school differently, babe."
"Maybe so, but I'm definitely not forgetting this." Seth flipped open to a page near the back and pointed to a photo of the two of them.
"Look! Homecoming." Morgan gasped in surprise when she saw the photo. She hadn't seen it in ages, hadn't been reminded of that night for just as long.
"Whoa. We look good."
"Of course we do, my queen," Seth joked. Morgan wore a sparkly blue dress and Seth wore a handsome suit, and both of them were wearing homecoming crowns and sashes. Morgan glanced between cool, confident Seth in a suit and current-day Seth wearing a borrowed DJ Parasite tank top that showed off their muscles and she could see no difference between the two.
She tried to cover up her blush with a laugh, "You know we won as a joke, right?"
"So what? It was the first time I ever got to wear a suit, and I got to be crowned in front of the whole school with my best friend. It was the happiest moment of my life for a long time and I thought you felt the same. Look. Right there, you said it yourself, we rule." Seth tapped the little quote Morgan wrote at the bottom of the photo.
"Alright, yeah, we do rule. That was a fun night…"
"I can't believe I didn't kiss you that night," Seth said, lost in thought as if they weren't aware they were even speaking aloud.
"What?" Morgan's hands balled up into fists inside her hoodie. She was wearing a bleach-stained NASA hoodie and Hello Kitty pajama pants. She did not look sparkly or regal or even cute. Seth must be overcome with wistfulness once more. Looking at pretty high school Morgan, homecoming queen Morgan. Seth wasn't talking about hot mess modern-day Morgan.
Seth looked up, realizing what they'd said and beginning to redden, "Well… I mean, I always had a crush on you."
"In high school?" Morgan prompted, unable to believe this could be happening right here and now.
"And college," Seth mumbled, "and now…"
Morgan's heart just about stopped.
"You did? You do?"
Seth nodded, biting their tongue.
"Oh."
"You don't have to say anything, Morgan, it's okay, I understand. But… If I had a second chance, I'd kiss you at the end of that slow dance."
Morgan stood up, ignoring the crumbs on her pajama pants or the cat playing with a discarded page of notebook paper at their feet. The mess didn't matter, the rest of the world didn't matter. It didn't even matter that there wasn't any music, Morgan only had one thought in her head.
"Seth… May I have this dance?" They melted together, swaying around the dining room before Morgan leaned down and let Seth kiss her. And that was far better than their wistful high school memories or anything from their past. Because this was their present and their future, all rolled up into one tender kiss.
"Do you need any help with your project?" Seth asked when the kiss ended. Morgan was not thinking about either of her projects right now, she was dumbfounded and delighted, still swaying to silent music.
"Huh?"
Seth laughed and stepped away, "Oh, wow, I really broke you, huh?"
"I like kissing you," Morgan said giddily.
"I like kissing you too, Morgan Helena Lynch. But unfortunately, we gotta be adults and do adult things, so maybe we should save the kissing for a little later. I mean, we haven't even gone on a proper date." Seth was teasing now, aware they had the upper hand.
"That's not fair. We've gone on dozens of dates. We just didn't call them that."
"I'm holding out for something real."
"Okay… Seth Ellis Drake, will you properly and really go out with me?" Seth had enjoyed the teasing and the kiss but they hadn't expected Morgan to get down on her knees and take a hold of Seth's hand. Now Seth felt a little breathless.
"Y-yeah…"
"Perfect. After the open house, I'm going to plan the most perfect date in the whole world for you." It was only then that Morgan remembered the open house, and her other, more pressing plan. Before she could sweep Seth off their feet she had to knock Obake off of his. Her face darkened and she sat back down. Seth got the memo, they both had to get to work, and so they went off to continue packing.
Morgan opened her laptop and looked at the project she'd actually been working on, trying to track down the scum known as Obake. According to Hiro, Obake covered his tracks pretty well. But Morgan had something Hiro didn't- an in. Morgan had copied down a bug that Obake had infected Kei's systems with and she was sure that she could use it to track Obake down. And- what then? She'd begin attacking another human with her baseball bat? As much as she loathed the man who had used Tadashi's image to inflict pain on Hiro, she couldn't kill him. But she could confront him, or pass on her knowledge to Big Hero 6, or Krei, or the police… Yeah, she could confront him. No one else could know about it until afterwards, not even Seth. Then she'd do the other stuff, like going to the police…
She was feeling pretty good about her plan, feeling pretty cocky, until Obake and his goons attacked the open house. Getting a good look at the man who'd made Hiro's life a living hell sent shivers down her spine. She would have confronted him right then and there if she'd had her wings and her bat. All she really had as a weapon was a laptop she could have hurled at him, but that had her final project on it and she wasn't really in the mood to go computer shopping. Besides… Big Hero 6 had this covered, right? She could sneak away and do the confrontation tomorrow. Yeah. She'd pencil that into her schedule. Open house (and open house supervillain attack) tonight, confrontation tomorrow, date night the day after that. Perfect.
Seth was becoming worried about Morgan. Morgan seemed completely in her own head, not reacting to the revelation that Lenore Shimamoto had caused the great catastrophe. She didn't even seem happy about the good grade she'd gotten on her "hack-proof" computer program.
"You good, babe?" Seth asked as they drove away from SFIT. Morgan's posterboard was in the back and she was hugging her laptop to her chest.
"I mean… We were just attacked."
"Well, we weren't attacked, our friends were attacked. But saying that out loud, I understand how that isn't better," Seth said.
"At least they uh, they handled themselves well," Morgan said with a sigh, looking out the window. She was of the increasingly unpopular opinion that maybe Big Hero 6 shouldn't have to handle themselves against a bunch of weirdo villains, noting of course that she was technically one of those weirdo villains. The world had seemed so much simpler just one year ago, and while Morgan didn't regret all of the changes that had happened in that time, she wished there was some way she could ensure peace in San Fransokyo.
Seth must have been some kind of mind reader, "You didn't have the wings, there was nothing you could do."
"There should have been something I could do," Morgan said, before biting her lip, "Never mind. I'm tired, I just want to go to bed and get some rest." It was an almost convincing lie, but the Angel of Vengeance was a night owl. Seth didn't even think to ask Morgan to stay in that night, but they noticed when Morgan slipped out and they knew, immediately, what she was doing.
Morgan knew how to track Obake's tech. She thought that would mean something, naively thought she would have an audience with the villain. She had her wings and her disguise and her baseball bat, which was about all she needed. Okay, a real lightsaber probably would have been slightly more helpful, but Morgan was pretty sure she could make her point with a baseball bat.
"Okay, Morgan, you've got this… Game plan… Call Obake out for being a bitch, hit him with the baseball bat if necessary and then… What? Call in reinforcements?" Morgan didn't have reinforcements. She just had the baseball bat, the wings, and an ample supply of rage. This was a bad idea but she'd come too far to back down now.
She burst into the abandoned warehouse where she'd tracked him to, unaware that Hiro had also been lured into this very warehouse just yesterday. She looked around for a moment before her eyes narrowed in on Obake.
"Hey! You've got a lot of explaining to do, asshole." He stood up, not as graceful as he'd appeared at the open house.
"Hello, Morgan. I was beginning to worry you wouldn't come."
Morgan was caught off guard by the fact that Obake knew who she was.
"I uh- listen here! You need to stop being a dick to Hiro. What you did- using Tadashi against him, that wasn't okay."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Obake said calmly.
"Oh, I understand plenty. You're a man who thinks himself a god."
"And you're a girl who thinks herself an angel. An arbiter of justice. But you don't know anything about justice. You can't save the people in your life, you couldn't save Tadashi and you won't save Hiro. Or Seth. Because you're not a hero, Morgan, you're not an angel, you're not even special. Everything you've ever done has failed, even this."
Filled with rage, Morgan gripped the metal baseball bat and swung, hitting metal. Obake (or Robo-bake, Morgan supposed) laughed, but Morgan barely heard it. Now that she knew the man in front of her wasn't human, she began taking out her pent-up aggression on him, beating him down until he was laughing no more.
Unfortunately for Morgan, Robo-bake had simply been another distraction.
"Morgan watch out!" Morgan instantly deployed the wings as a shield, the buddy guards' lasers easily tearing through them. She swung at one with her baseball bat and was able to knock it out of the air, only then able to see the source of the warning.
"Seth, what are you doing here?!"
"Reinforcements," Seth swung a baseball bat of their own and smashed a buddy guard into the wall. They were wearing the heavy-duty goggles that Morgan also wore but that was the extent of their own super-gear.
Morgan nearly teared up, half out of gratefulness and half out of fear.
"I don't want you getting hurt-" Morgan interjected.
"If we play our cards right, neither of us will get hurt. Now shut up and swing."
The next half hour was quiet except the cathartic sound of the two twenty-somethings smashing Krei tech. These were the very inventions that had gotten Morgan into anti-heroism. It was some kind of beautiful circle of life bullshit that she found herself now, fighting these crazy robots alongside her partner-in-crime-turned-lover. Finally, they'd smashed the very last robot, and then smashed them all again to be sure, and only then could they catch their breath and process.
They slumped against the wall, shoulder to shoulder, and surveyed the wreckage.
"I can fix those wings," Seth said, still panting a little, sweaty and covered in warehouse dust. Morgan thought they looked devilishly handsome.
"I know, babe."
"I can probably make something pretty rad from all these busted robot parts, too," Seth mumbled.
"Don't bite off more than you can chew."
"Mm, okay. Hey, Morgan?"
"Yeah?"
"I hope this wasn't your idea of a first date."
Morgan began to laugh, and then the laughter turned to sobs and Seth wasn't sure what was going on or how best to help.
"Morgan?"
"Obake knew I was coming. He knew how to push my buttons. He said… He said I couldn't save you, just like I wasn't able to save Tadashi."
"Oh, Morgan… He had no right to use Tadashi against you like that. That wasn't your fault, that wasn't anybody's fault, other than Callaghan, and he's going to pay for that in prison. But… He was right about one thing. You can't save me, Morgan, because we were meant to save each other. I will always have your back. That first night, when you became the Angel of Vengeance… I should never have made you jump alone. We're a team, Morgan."
Morgan smiled through her tears, unable to stop crying though she desperately wanted to.
"I love you, Seth."
"Then let me help, whatever you need. I'm here when you need to talk or when you need to fuck up some robots. In life, in love, in evil or in good, I'm here."
"Seth… Can I kiss you?"
"I don't know, can you?"
Morgan giggled and swatted Seth's arm before kissing them, getting her own tears on Seth's cheeks. It was soft and slow and tender and it was the only thing that mattered in a world that was ending. They stayed there, exhausted and in love, for what felt like forever, and when they emerged the world was as different as they were.
A little later, after they'd discretely hauled robot parts out of the abandoned warehouse, they heard about the catastrophe. Even later than that, they would hear of Obake's demise, right now they were too busy being relieved that everyone they loved was in one piece. After calling her mom, Morgan called The Lucky Cat just to hear that Aunt Cass and Hiro were okay, then she and Seth dropped by Sadie, Dalton, and Bennet's apartment. If their tears hadn't been exhausted by that morning's events they probably would have wept in the arms of Sadie and her boyfriends, so overwhelmed with joy that everyone was still standing.
Seth almost told their sister that what she'd always suspected was right, that there was something between Seth and Morgan. Instead, they asked the trio for help moving and let the fact that they'd be trading two beds for one come as a fun surprise. For now, Seth and Morgan were contented to keep their obvious love a secret. After all, they still hadn't even been on a proper date.
Morgan took care of that in the following week, once they'd allowed themselves to have the time and space to process everything. She wished she still had the sparkly blue dress she'd worn to homecoming, but she knew that Seth loved her no matter what she was wearing. So she matched her date in a handsome suit, adding heels that Seth rolled their eyes at. They used the opportunity to straighten each other's ties, tender little touches more precious than fake crowns and slow dances.
"Are you ready, my king?"
"You know it, sugar," Seth replied, looping their arm through Morgan's as they headed out for a magical evening, their first proper date, the end of an era of stolen glances, and the beginning of something truly spectacular.
Question Of The Week- What was your favorite chapter of Angel of Vengeance? I have several favorites :D