A week and a half later finds Malik lounging in the bay window, warmed by the afternoon sun and reading a paper book from Vaclav's shop. She's nearly dozed off, head leaning against the window, cushions propped under her leg to keep it comfortable and help her resist moving it. She's gotten better, and Vaclav had even supported her decision to decrease the painkillers. If she could handle the pain, better to take less before she made herself immune to them, and then needed to take something worse to deal with it. Adam still insisted on being in the same room with her, especially when she sat in the window where any passerby (…passerboat) could see her, but he had at least relaxed a little and seemed to busy himself with other things. Polishing weapons, reading something on his HUD, or perhaps even dozing. It was an improvement.

Vaclav walks into this, his arms laden with a bundle in his arms, a big metal object. His best design yet, and Malik's new leg. It was almost that Caidin white, just a shade darker and so starkly different from Vaclav's silver and Icarus' carbon black. It was elegant and pristine, and the joins in it were seamless except for where they were wider cracks. What seemed to be a design flaw, except, when on and attached, glowed the same red as the phoenix on her coat. It looked like it held a phoenix's heart inside of it, glowing radiant and beautiful. And it had all sorts of fun additions – a toned down dash, so she could spring off it into a run, a space to hide a gun and a knife, heating that went searing (he remembers her boot on Otkar's throat) and room to add more whenever she wanted. He'd modeled it after her leg perfectly – no deviations like the gazelle and sprinter legs – to accommodate that she still had a flesh leg to use it with, and he made sure it articulated well enough to wear whatever shoes she wanted, be they heels or boots. He considered painting phoenix feathers on it, but decided he'd ask her if she wanted that or if that was perhaps too ostentatious. He hoped she'd like it.

"Mal?"

"Mmm, later," she mumbles, the book already closed in her lap with her finger holding the place she'd stopped, nearly dozing off. Icarus is the exact opposite, sitting up alert the moment he noticed what was in Vaclav's hands.

"Maal, you're really going to want to see this," he intones, that slight hint of whining at the edge of his voice. He'd worked on this so hard, so long, he couldn't wait for her to see it any longer. He had to know what she thought, now.

"What?" she rubs at her eyes as she wakes herself back up, yawning behind her hand as she turns to look-

She drops her book, the pages falling closed on the floor.

"Is that-?" A little breathless, leaning out over the floor instead of into the window, like she's moving to get up and come see for herself. Vaclav stops her from doing that by quickly walking over with it, bounding eagerly.

"Your new leg, yes. What do you think?" He's barely containing himself, but as Malik's hands reach for it reverently, hefting it into her lap, he thinks that he did good. That this was an aug deserving of the great Phoenix, of his best friend, of Faridah Malik.

"I love it," she can't even look up at him yet, still in awe. Her hands drifting over the contours of it, smooth and perfect. When she finally does lift her head, she's beaming bright, and it's like the last flame in her has sprung to the size of a bonfire. The glint in her eyes is one he hadn't seen in these last few weeks, and she doesn't even have it on yet.

"Want me to put it on tomorrow?" He's grinning back at her, and if he had the wherewithal to spare a glance at Icarus, he'd see even the assassin smiling slightly. He doesn't, neither does Malik, both of them locked into their own moment, overjoyed and eager and in love with this piece of art.

"Yes."

"No food after nine, then," Vaclav wags a finger at her, and she snorts.

"You got it, doctor. We're sleeping here though."

Icarus huffs in the corner, catching both their gazes, and the faintest echo of that smile is still on his face.

"See, even the assassin likes a bed."

Malik drags herself up the next morning – she'd finally gotten better at using the crutches but she wouldn't need to anymore after today, and she could not wait. Moving to make sure her plane was still in good condition, and Vaclav stops her, half asleep and yawning loud.

"We can do it here, Mal," he points out, moving with closed eyes into the kitchen and pawing around for the coffee machine.

"Am I hearing this right? The great Vaclav Koller, addicted to his dungeon and his ratty Chair, wanting to use another mechanic's workshop?" Malik asks, half certain she hadn't actually woken up yet and was just dreaming about her new leg.

Vaclav scratches at the back of his neck, a little sheepish. "What can I say? The mechanic who gave you this place kept a good shop. She- what did you say her name was?"

"Anya."

"Anya kept a clean shop. She has all the tools I did, but nicer. Wish I knew who she had as clients that she could afford all this."

"Ones who paid at all, maybe," Malik points out, leaning her crutches on the island in the kitchen and bracing her arms over the top, standing on her leg.

"Fair, fair point. Anyway, this should be fine. 'sides, I don't know what happened to my shop while I've been gone. Maybe someone took all my tools." He shrugs. He'd never really left the shop for that long before, and plenty of people knew it was his. It would be simple work to destroy it while he was gone, especially the bookshop itself which he couldn't upgrade with anywhere near as much security as it needed.

"I'm just glad you're not making me fly back after an operation. I'm still never sleeping in your bed again." The smell of coffee makes Malik jealous – she wants her own cup, her stomach growling loudly against the quartz countertop, but she just drops her face into her hands.

"We'll see about that," Vaclav teases, but inwardly he's also hoping that she's never in a state again where she has to crash on his bed. Somehow he thinks that's unlikely, but an aug can dream. "Let me finish my coffee and we'll get started."

The procedure goes about as well as it can. Icarus is watching him all the while he works, and while that kind of unrelenting gaze is unnerving and heavy, it helps steady his hands too. Vaclav asks for the assassin's help once he's ready to attach the new limb, shiny and new and fully tested.

"Hold her down for me," Vaclav says, focused enough that he doesn't even notice that it wasn't a question or request, but an order. Icarus complies though, his arms bracing heavy over her right shoulder and left hip, standing by her head to stay out of Vaclav's way as much as possible.

Vaclav swallows tight and attaches the leg, connects the PEDOT implants to their augmentation, and bites his lip as he activates the connection. The instant it happens is like a firework going off in his hands. Malik jerks hard, a noise half-caught between a groan and a shout, and Vaclav thinks for a second she's woken herself up from the sheer agony. Her new leg is trying to connect, to respond to the commands she's unconsciously sending it, to act like a limb. Which is good, it's all good, it means Vaclav did it right, but it's certainly not the least painful process. Icarus' lips are a thin line, and they both understand, both know this.

Eventually she settles, still shaking barely under both their restraining arms, but the worst is past. Vaclav sighs, rubs an arm over his forehead and drops into a chair, reaching for his now-cold coffee. Better than nothing, and he chugs it straight down. Icarus is slower to move away, hovering near even after he's taken his arms off, and Vaclav contemplates that silently. Diligent and devoted to his work? Or something more? He was so inscrutable that Vaclav wasn't even sure he'd ever manage to guess right, at least not just yet. Maybe if he got to know the man behind the shades.

"She should be out for another half hour at least. Might as well let her rest." Vaclav turns to his tablets, checking readings and making sure the connection was as stable and solid as it appeared to be. Everything looked good on his end. He'd just have to see how she was doing when she woke up.

Malik wakes with a groan a short while later, slowly pulling herself to the minimum of consciousness. Vaclav and Icarus are there shortly, though with nowhere near the speed they had been when she'd been in Vaclav's Chair last.

"Hey Mal, how're you doin'?" Vaclav asks, gentle hands reaching to help her sit up. Icarus stays back, still not familiar enough with her despite all their time spent together to touch her so easily.

"Fine enough," she grumbles, that familiar weight and tire from being anesthetized an annoyance. She appreciates Vaclav's help, and shifts her legs-

Wait.

Her legs.

"-holy shit," she murmurs, eyes wide open and pupils wide as she stares down. The beautiful leg Vaclav had handed her just yesterday was a part of her now, and the perfect seams between panels glowed red and warm. He hadn't shown her all of its upgrades, and she hadn't seen it on.

"Good holy shit or bad?" Vaclav asks, suddenly a little nervous. He thinks he knows Malik well enough to say that she loves it, but one could never be sure with something as critical as a large augmentation.

"Very good," she answers immediately, gaze snapping up to his and beaming. Those might even be tears in the corners of her eyes, and she surges to hug him tight. He moves forward fast before she can fall off the chair, hugging her back, his shoulders slumping in relief.

"I promised, only the best for you," he murmurs into her shoulder.

"Thank you," is all she says in response. He gave her back her leg, worked tirelessly while she more or less just lounged around, and she'd put him under all this stress just because she'd been stupid and careless. And he didn't hold any of that against her, just dove right back in to help her when she needed it.

She couldn't ask for a better friend.

"What does it have?" she asks once he's pulled away, moving to dangle her legs over the chair and see if she can stand on it. No longer interested in any kind of patience – here was the light at the end, here was her ability to be again.

"What doesn't it have?" Vaclav responds, laughing and offering a hand to her. She ignores it for the moment, and he allows her that, the attempt at standing and moving without help for once in a long while. "I gave you a modified Icarus dash," saying the name makes him glance at the assassin, wondering if that's where he chose his moniker from, "you can't do a full dash, you'd need two leg augs for it, but you can boost off that one, to, perhaps, start running at speed, or, y'know, kick someone really hard." He's grinning. "I made spaces for you to put a gun and a knife, both of which should be undetectable by scanners," he didn't want her getting hurt like that again, and the foot's got a blade in the toe if you'd really like to punctuate things."

It's then that Malik realizes just how much she can do with a physical aug, with more than just neural additions. How much more was possible. She'd save figuring out the knives until after she figured out walking, though she supposed it might just be a simple neural cue.

"Anything else?" just how many augs could one fit into a single limb?

"It has the silencer, but that's kind of useless for anything but the noise it makes unless you want to hop around on one foot to be stealthy," he offers, laughing. "And a jump mod, so if you want to use that you're going to need to practice jumping off one leg." He shrugs, then. "I stopped there since I figured you wanted the leg sooner more than anything. There's still room in there if you decide you want anything else, just say the word and I'll make it happen."

"This is great, Vaclav. Thank you."

She bites her lip absentmindedly, focusing, and moves to stand. Her hands braced on the arm rest of the chair and the cushion, and her new leg responds well enough to what she wants it to do. It feels heavy, but she's not sure if that's from growing used to having nothing there or because it really is heavier than her other leg. She wonders if Vaclav thought of that, too, and made it weigh precisely the right amount to not throw her off. She wouldn't put it past him.

The sensation of standing on two legs, of her stump pressing down on something, it's all new and-

Her aug leg buckles immediately.

Before Vaclav can even process the movement, the sudden bend in the knee of her augmentation, Icarus is there. His hands catching her lightly by the arms, helping stabilize her and get her weight on her other leg.

"You alright?" the assassin asks quietly, and Vaclav is suddenly reminded that if anyone understood getting used to leg augmentations suddenly, it would be him.

"It's not as easy as you make it look," she says accusingly at him, though there's that hint of amusement in her eyes.

He exhales a puff of breath, an eyebrow raised. "I've had my augs for years. I didn't walk on them the day I got them." Not exactly true, but she didn't need to know that.

"It moved so easily, I thought that's all there was to it." She glances at Vaclav, smiling despite leaning heavy on Icarus' support.

"I'm flattered Mal, but you have to take it easy. It's gonna be a little before you really get used to having an aug limb."

"I could've guessed that much. Why can't I walk on it?" She tries to lean her weight on it again, this time with a little more success. Her leg bends at the knee but stays up.

"You probably sent it disagreeing signals. Your brain still thinks you're injured, but your leg is telling you it's all there. Put the two together and it's not quite sure what to do with itself. Like any good computer, it shuts down when it panics." He's almost smiling, but it seems more strained than anything else. Perhaps too much experience with that particular phenomenon.

"I'm sick of crutches," she grumbles, looking down at her leg accusingly, but taking them when Vaclav gets the hint and grabs them for her.

"You're almost there, Mal. Just a little longer."

"I wanna burn these when we're done too."

"No," Vaclav stops that idea before it can even begin. "I give these to clients – no burning."

"Fine," she laughs though, situating herself on the crutches. Icarus seems hesitant to let her go, his hands lifting off and hovering over her arms once she's stable.

"You got it?" the assassin asks, and Malik just nods, determined. She wants to be off those crutches by the end of the day. Especially if she wants to be attending the Gala in a few short weeks.

"Oh- Mal, you're going to have to…roughly double your nupoz dose, now." She'd been taking the minimum needed for neural additions, but now she'd have to take more to keep her body from rejecting the PEDOT implants in her leg too. "I'll get you an exact number in a bit."

Malik seems surprised by this – like she'd forgotten at all. She only took a dose once every few days as it was, but it made sense that she'd have to take more with a more extensive augmentation. "What's your dose like, super-assassin?" she asks lightheartedly, turning to Icarus.

"Don't need any," he answers shortly. Both Malik and Vaclav look at him, thinking that this might be…a joke? He looks perfectly serious, but that answer can't possibly be true.

"You don't…need neuropozyne?" Vaclav finally manages. He thinks he should've noticed maybe, when Icarus never asked for any nupoz vials after a visit. He'd just assumed the man was getting it from somewhere else.

"Nope."

Helpful and eloquent answers, as always.

"I guess that's lucky for you, then," Malik offers, a little uncertainly. It explained how he was able to have so many augs, at least – that many on someone who needed neuropozyne surely would've killed them from the drug alone.

"Something like that." He's looking at Malik now, or at least his shades are pointed at her. Watching her to see if she'd fall, or just in response to her statement, both were possible.

"Well, I'm going to go beat this leg into submission and make it work. Thank you Vaclav. Go get some sleep." He'd probably been awake for the last few days finishing up the aug, Malik knew.

"You got it, mom." Vaclav has been rubbing at his eyes since she woke up, and she thinks he's quite close to crashing, if she had to guess.

"You're grounded," she fires back, hobbling out of the room and towards the living room. She tries to put more weight on her aug with every swing of the crutches, hoping if she does it enough times it might finally stand on her request. It felt like her other leg did, she didn't need to consciously make it work, but It was fighting her now only because she'd already gotten halfway accustomed to not having a leg at all.

By the end of the day, Malik has slam dunked the crutches in the corner of the room, and is limping around carefully. She'll chalk that up to a win – no more under-shoulder aches, and Adam looks a little less like a coiled spring ready to leap and keep her from touching the ground.

Her leg still aches, and she imagines that pain won't go away anytime soon, but it's better than not walking at all. She feels a little more herself, leaning against the counter in the kitchen and throwing together something to eat. She's starving, and has been looking forward to real food (not the ramen Vaclav offers, nor the cereal Adam turns to) since she'd been told to not eat anything.

She makes enough for the three of them, quick and dirty omelettes, and she catches Adam taking a large swig from his flask as she slides his plate toward him. "I know you only eat cereal and whiskey, but other things taste good too, you know."

"Hm. We'll have to see about that." His shoulders aren't so wound tight though, and he looks a little more relaxed.

"You'll find no better proof than my food." A pause. "Unless, that is, you've left all the ingredients to rot. Then I call sabotage." She dumps a second omelette in a plate for Vaclav, and sets to making one for herself.

He snorts, leaning against the island in the kitchen and not touching his food. Waiting for her, she supposes? Table manners are strangely unfamiliar, when she's gotten used to eating wherever she's sat and Vaclav has probably never sat at a table in his life, either. It's refreshing, and she smiles softly to herself at it.

She imagines she's watched Adam as closely as he's watched her these past few weeks, and likes to think she's gotten somewhat better at reading him. Small shifts in his body language that she had initially just assumed were closed-off actions but are entire reactions on their own. He kept his cards close to his chest, and she still hadn't actually seen his eyes – the one time she caught him with his shades off had been when he was taking a nap in the recliner by her bay window, but his eyes had been closed then. She wanted to know. What color were they?

She wonders why that's so important to her.

"Be right back." She leaves her omelette in the pan just slightly underdone and picks up Vaclav's plate to take to him – he's probably asleep, but if she leaves the plate by him the smell and warmth of it might wake him up enough to eat it and pass out again. She still has to hobble, but more of that is the ache of her raw leg. The aug itself responds beautifully, never stuttering and hardly making a sound. Vaclav hadn't been kidding about the silencers he'd installed.

Vaclav is, in fact, sleeping in a pile of parts, and she leaves the plate just above his hand, pulling the tablet from under his cheek and reaching for a blanket to toss over his shoulders. She couldn't force him in bed with a weak leg, and he'd wake up sooner if she did, anyway.

By the time she gets back to the kitchen, her meal is just ready, and she slides it into a plate and moves to sit next to Adam at the island. His omelette has cooled a fair bit by now, and she frowns – if she'd known he was going to wait she wouldn't have made his first.

"Cheers," she raises her glass of water to his flask – no alcohol while she was on painkillers, for now, at least – and his lips turn upward as he mirrors the action.

"Cheers," he says in response.

She grins and digs into her food, enjoying something warm and edible for the first time in too long.

"Whaddya think?" she says after a while and a gulp of water, a small pause before she finishes up the scraps.

"Passable," he answers, and she thinks the lilt in his voice is a smug one.

"Sabotage. You waited too long to eat it," she points out, sounding annoyed as she waves her fork at him but grinning all the while.

"You can't prove anything," he fires back, and she laughs.

It startles her how easy it's become to exist with him. Malik was used to being on the move always, to being close to very few people and only from afar, rarely spending too long with them for fear of putting them in danger. And yet, here she was, feeling comfortable and at ease next to this deadly assassin after just a few short weeks. He felt, well, almost like a friend. Which he'd probably take offense to, if she told him.

She waits until she's done eating, half-turning to look at him. He raises an eyebrow at her, taking another drink as he does.

"So, Adam, you ever been to a Gala?" there's a glint of mischief in her eyes, and even Vaclav might be worried if he saw that.

"The ridiculously extravagant parties the underground throws a few times a year?" he asks, and Malik would swear that the arch of his eyebrow is getting even steeper. "Where everyone shows their faces?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Being elusive and mysterious are basically on my business card," he says by way of answer. She laughs, turning to face him better.

"I used to go at least once a year, and I think it might be the best place to remind everyone I'm still very much here."

"And you want me to come."

"If you'd like." She speaks less like a charge with a bodyguard, and more like a friend requesting a favor. Perhaps that's because she doesn't know when he'll want to quit, when he'll get tired of working for nearly free. "Should be fun. The Phoenix is alive and she has Icarus?" The grin on her face is growing wider. "It'll be great."

He doesn't raise any complaints about the mention of belonging to her, and it hits her suddenly that that is what she'd just said. That Icarus was hers. Was he? Even if he wasn't, it wouldn't be a bad image to give to the underground to chew on.

"Sure, why not?" he punctuates that with another drink, tilting his head back steeply to get the last of the whiskey.

"You're going to have to dress up, though. What did you call it, 'ridiculously extravagant'? Your trench coat won't cut it," she says, prodding a finger at the fabric of the coat.

He actually looks offended this time, rumbling, "This is a custom piece."

"Still not fancy enough," she laughs. "Impress me."

"Is that a challenge, Phoenix?" He's looking at her sharply, she's sure of it.

"You bet your ass it is."