A/N: So, this one didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to. I can't really explain what I wanted it to be, but it was something... more? than what this is. Still, I hope you enjoy it anyway! Maybe I'll come back to this idea at a later date and see if I can rework it so it's closer to what I was hoping for.
Beca:
I need your help
Chloe:
Are you okay?
Beca:
No. Can you come get me
Chloe:
What happened?
Chloe:
Of course. Where are you?
Beca:
Somewhere on Rosenberg
Beca:
Alley beside a mini-mart
Beca:
When you get here
Beca:
Just
Beca:
I'm sorry okay
Chloe:
Beca you're scaring me
Chloe:
I'm leaving right now
The alleyway between Marlin's Mini-Mart and SuperSud's Laundromat is dark and long. Even in the daytime, it's filled with shadows - that's why Beca likes it. She's been using this alley for a while now and is yet to run into problems. It's so dark at the back that even if people passing by were to look in her direction, they wouldn't see her right away.
Water, left from the rain that had soaked through her suit earlier, paints puddles across the cement. They lie against the ground like black holes and Beca stares at them from where she sits, her butt on cold stone and her back against Marlin's exterior wall. She thinks about tipping her body forward into one of them, just to see if it'll swallow her up and save her from what comes next.
However, the pain she's feeling doesn't give her much chance to dwell on that.
Her breath hitches as a lightning bolt of white-hot fire shoots from her elbow to shoulder and she can feel blood oozing out of the wound just below her ribs. It's coating the glove on her hand, seeping in through the material to turn her skin red in the dark.
Her head aches, there are gashes along both of her arms, her legs, and she's pretty sure she keeps passing out. Her wrist might be broken and everything feels like it's on fire.
She wonders if Scorpion's venom is deadly and, if it is, if she'll still be alive when Chloe finds her.
She's dully aware of a car door opening and closing, of flat-bottomed shoes slapping against wet pavement.
"Beca?" Chloe's desperation bounces off the walls of the alley and those inside Beca's mind, and Beca tries to move, to stand, but collapses with a gasp of pain that draws Chloe closer. "Beca, where are-" Chloe is finally close enough that Beca can see her and she watches as the redhead jerks to a stop, her mouth falling open as she finishes her sentence with a quiet, "you."
There's a moment then, hanging in suspended time, where Beca sees everything that matters to her crumbling to ash as it's razed to the ground by her own hand. She sees the confusion and shock in eyes that remain bright blue despite the darkness, sees those things plummet down into the depths of hurt and betrayal and dim the light in them.
"I'm sorry," Beca says, her voice a broken warble. And while she's sure, now, that such an apology will mean nothing to Chloe, it means everything to her. Because she means it with every fibre of what's left of her being. "I'm so-" her breath hitches as more blood seeps out from her side and she clutches her hand around the wound to try and stem the flow. Her feet kick out against the slippery pavement as her body tries to twist itself in agony and suddenly Chloe is beside her.
Kneeling on the wet cement, hands hovering in the air between them as she instinctively reaches out towards Beca and then stops, unsure about what to do, how to help. She glances down to where Beca is gripping her side and pulls out her cellphone, navigating to the flashlight and illuminating the alleyway.
"Oh my god," Chloe gasps, bringing a hand to cover her mouth as tears fill her eyes. There's a gaping hole in Beca's side that's weeping blood and another unidentifiable substance; viscous and foreign, not belonging inside the human body.
Chloe takes off the scarf she has wrapped around her neck and bunches it up before gently lifting Beca's hand away from the wound and pressing the material against her side. Beca whines in pain but Chloe places her blood-covered hand back in place and tells her to apply pressure to the area. Her voice is shaking as she tells Beca she's going to call for an ambulance.
"No!" Beca manages, her voice scratchy and threaded with pain. "Can't…" she breathes in too deeply and grimaces at the way her ribs protest. Broken, in all probability. "Like this. Need to change."
"Beca, you're bleeding out-"
"No one can know!" The last of Beca's strength goes into the defiant statement and her eyes, though glazed and glassy, search Chloe's, beseechingly. "Please. I have to… protect you." Tears spill out onto Beca's ruddy cheeks as the pain in her chest intensifies. "That's why I didn't…" Pain darts along her side again, stealing away the rest of her sentence, but Chloe seems to have gotten the message.
Earlier, feeling as though she was suffocating, Beca had torn the mask from her head to reveal a patchwork of mottled yellows and purples, spliced with lines of red. Chloe lifts her hand to Beca's face now, careful to avoid the marred areas, and brushes her thumb across a patch of unblemished skin. The tears in her eyes remain but are yet to fall. Somehow, Chloe's managing to hold them in. Hold things together, like always. And for all of Beca's abilities, she's always marvelled at Chloe's strength.
Beca can't avoid seeing the hurt that still shines in Chloe's eyes, though. Knows that, after tonight, talks will be had, maybe there will be some yelling, and things will inevitably change. Beca just doesn't know how much they will.
"What do you want me to do?" Chloe asks after a few seconds, her tone far calmer than Beca suspects she's actually feeling.
Breathing heavily, Beca lifts a leaden arm and turns it so her wrist is towards the sky. With the material in tatters, it's easy to see the web fluid canisters against her pale skin and she can feel Chloe watching as she aims towards a high corner and presses her two middle fingers down against the pressure plate sitting in her palm.
A line of webbing shoots out and Beca manages to grab the end of it as she hears it hit its mark. With a tug that takes more out of her than she'd like to admit, something is pulled free from the wall and lands with a dull thump against the ground.
It's a backpack.
"My clothes." Beca takes a few deep, laboured breaths and leans her head back against the brick behind her. "Need to change. Then hospital." She turns pleading eyes on Chloe. "I never… I didn't want you to find out like this.."
"There will be time for that later," Chloe says, sniffing and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "Stop talking, it's wasting strength." She opens up the bag and looks inside to see what she's working with. "Can you stand?"
Beca tries but collapses, so Chloe goes about removing the top half of her attire while Beca sits. Peeling away the cut-off hoodie and tight shirt is a struggle, and Beca can see that Chloe is trying not to react as all her cuts and bruises are revealed. She tries not to cry out as the material stuck to the wound at her side is pulled free and almost bites through her lip in her effort. The garment snags her wrist and she tastes blood.
Chloe helps her up, holds her there, when it comes time to get her jeans on. She sets them on the wet ground and helps Beca step into them. Then, as quick as she can, Chloe lets go of Beca and pulls the pants up. Beca's legs almost give out but this time, Chloe's there to catch her.
Beca gasps into her shoulder as Chloe's arm wraps around her waist and holds her tight.
"Beca, I'm gonna need you to walk, okay? The car isn't far."
Beca nods weakly and, slow and careful, they start to move.
The alleyway feels like it's a mile long and every step Beca takes ignites her insides. She finally closes her eyes, unable to handle the way everything is spinning, and feels her way along the wall with a hand attached to a wrist that isn't broken.
Suddenly, she's trying to crawl into the backseat of Chloe's Beetle, eventually collapsing far enough in that Chloe can get the door closed behind her. Beca's eyelids flutter as she notes that Chloe has placed her bag on the floor behind the passenger seat.
Then she opens her eyes to watch the streetlights fly by at an alarming pace.
Another moment and Beca can hear Chloe talking to someone. She can't move to look, or even open her eyes right now, but she thinks Chloe must be on the phone. She sounds worried. Frantic, almost. Beca wonders, confused, what could be wrong. She opens her mouth to ask but the motion makes it feel like someone's just split her head in two and so she closes it again.
There's a man in a white coat pulling at her legs. Beca wants to kick at him but her limbs won't cooperate. She feels a ripping, biting pain at her side and cries out as the darkness takes her.
She wakes to the sound of beeping. It's not fast enough to be an alarm clock, though its speed is just enough to be annoying and Beca tries to open her eyes to find the cause of it.
But her eyelids won't cooperate.
She starts to frown, but her muscles won't react the way she wants them to.
She tries to move. An arm, a finger, a toe, anything.
Nothing.
Panic rises like bile in the back of her throat but just as she's about to cry out, she hears Chloe's voice.
"... idea how long?"
"It's difficult to say. We've never encountered a venom like this before and so with no known antidote…."
Beca doesn't recognise the second voice. Male and accented. South African, maybe?
"Have you been in contact with her parents?" He asks.
"Yes. Her mom is flying in tonight and her dad is on his way back from a seminar or something. I don't remember exactly."
She doesn't like the way Chloe's voice sounds. It's hollow and hopeless, and Beca wants to reach for her, but nothing will move.
"Can she hear us?" Chloe's voice is closer now, almost right beside Beca.
"It's possible. Many coma patients, when recovered, claim they heard everything that was said around them. Other's don't. But there's a chance."
Coma? I'm not in a coma. What is this guy smoking?
"Is it okay if I stay with her? Just for a little while?" Chloe's words warble with the threat of tears and Beca's heart beats so hard inside her chest, she's surprised no one is commenting on it.
"Of course."
There's silence for a moment, then Beca hears the click of a door being shut. Her hand is grasped by one as familiar to her as her own and Beca feels hot tears land against her skin before she hears the sobs themselves.
"Beca..." Chloe says her name like a broken prayer. Desperate and beseeching, begging almost. It tears at her. "Please. Don't… just come back, okay? Please, I won't even be mad, just… please come back. I need you."
I'm right here! Beca wants to say. I'm not going anywhere.
But as the minutes tick by into hours, Beca is afforded the time needed to reflect. To, begrudgingly, understand her situation.
Unable to move, speak, or breathe properly on her own, she knows what the man had said is true. Knows that it was Scorpion's venom that did this to her. That being the Spider has, for all intents and purposes, taken her away from Chloe - for a while, at least. And now she can't explain herself, why she's been lying all this time, and she can't begin to make amends.
She's been left to lie there, in the dark, listening to the sound of the person she loves crying over her.
This, she thinks, is a new kind of villain entirely.
But that doesn't mean she isn't going to fight.