A/N: I like this chapter a lot, seeing as it involves motorcycles, heavy injuries, and awkward bandaging.
Mott lets him off early, for which Gendry is thankful. He's been pulling long nights for the past few days, trying to get that girl's bike up to scratch. He doesn't really know why he worked so hard on it; maybe some stupid part of his mind that needed him to prove himself, especially to a rich kid like her. He's always hated that whole complex he's always had, the one that reminds him he's an orphan with no family and no hope. Wasted potential, doomed to mundanity.
But he's being dramatic; more likely it was because the motorcycle itself was such a brilliant machine. He didn't mind working on cars, but you got bored of people-carriers and bangers, and that bike was anything but. Hand-built from the bottom up, attention and thought going into every single decision, as well as a shit-ton of money. It was built for speed, but he guessed it could stand up to some rough-housing, too, and that was why it had survived whatever its owner had done with it. As far as he could tell, it was a crash, but it mustn't have been too serious; the girl was in one piece, and she wasn't limping. He couldn't really imagine someone like her building that motorcycle; something like that would require patience, and even from their brief meeting he already knew that she didn't have a whole lot.
In any case, the bike was done; shining, functional, maybe even better than before. Mott sent him home before the girl came to collect it, and he tried not to feel disappointed. Whatever. It wasn't like she was going to give him her number.
He gets off the bus at his stop; Flea Bottom. It's not a nice neighbourhood, not by any means, but it's all he's ever known. At the very least, rent is cheap, and beer even cheaper.
He manages to dodge the landlord on his way up to his flat, even though it comes close; luckily, he's too busy arguing with the woman downstairs who insists on feeding her cats at three in the morning to notice him. When he gets in, there's a pile of mail all over his floor, but he doesn't bother checking it and kicks it aside. He's not hungry, just tired, so even though it's only four, he crashes into his narrow bed and sleeps.
When he wakes up again, all the light is gone; winter's grip on King's Landing is beginning to tighten. Aimlessly, he goes for a shower and opens the bedroom window after to let the steam out. His phone shrills, so, after pulling on some pants, he moves to the flat's only other room to pick up.
It's just Anguy; sighing, he rejects it. All Anguy ever wants is more money, and Gendry has none to give. He's considered siphoning funds from back accounts before; even with his shitty laptop, he is completely capable of it. He did come close a few times, when the water was shut off and the fridge was bare, ready to remove thousands from some rich company's overflowing coffers... but he never did it. Gendry never had money, and he doesn't really know what he would do with it.
As he lowers the phone, a bang reaches his ears, coming from the direction of his bedroom. He stiffens. Flea Bottom isn't exactly safe, but he's never been broken into before. This poor bastard probably expected some weak single mom, not six-foot Gendry with an old hammer.
He bursts through the door, expecting to find some kind of thief, but instead he finds a skinny girl curled up on the floor in a puddle of blood.
"Shit!" he exclaims, and, dropping the hammer, rushes over to check the window, which, judging from the trail of blood, is probably how she entered. She yanks him back when he sticks his head out.
"Dumbass! They might still be... you!"
Crouched down beside her, he sees a very familiar pair of eyes. Grey eyes.
"Seven hells," he says finally. He sees something clutched in her hand. "Wait. Is that a gun? What in the name of all the gods are you doing with a gun?"
"Scratching my head," she says drolly, giving it to him without protest. "Do you live here? Or is this your girlfriend's place?"
He raises an eyebrow, and she nods jerkily towards his bare chest. For some reason that he isn't going to think about, he blushes "No. My place. No girlfriend."
"Well, that makes things easier," she sighs.
His heart beats a little faster. What is he, a teenage girl? "What things?"
"The things where you stop me from dying." His surprise drains away and he notices the sticky blood staining the sleeve of her jacket and her jeans, her arm cradled close to her chest. "I should be okay. I was wearing a helmet, I don't think I'm concussed."
"You don't think?" he asks, incredulously.
"Just pick me up and fix me, will you? I'm sure a mechanic can deal with a sprained elbow."
He admits defeat and picks her up, taking care not to jostle her arm. She's heavier than she looks; she must have some muscle mass. Her head knocks into his chest, blood from her arm smearing on his skin.
He lays her in the bathtub as carefully as he can, and surveys the damage. Cuts scraping down her side; he'll have to wash them and apply pressure. He takes her jacket off, attempting not to cause her pain; she screws her face up, and he feels like apologizing, but bites it back. The elbow sprain needs an ice pack and rest. Otherwise, she's whole.
"Wait here," he commands, as he finds what he needs. Ice pack, towel, tweezers (he saw some dirt in the wounds), gauze, scissors.
"Arm first," he tells her when he gets back. She's leaning back, head resting on the rim of the tub as he takes her arm gently, laying it on the side. He grabs the scissors and cuts the soiled fabric away, pulling it carefully from her broken skin as she winces.
"I liked that top," she grouses.
"Tough shit." He fills a cup with water and sluices the worst of the blood off her arm, before picking the tweezers up. "This might hurt," he tells her, and she nods, lips pressed together.
He picks the debris out, and when he's happy that the wounds are clean her starts on her elbow. He wraps the ice pack in a towel and quickly, so as not to cause her more pain, ties it around her elbow. She grits her teeth.
"That's the worst of it," he reassures her, picking up the gauze and wrapping it around her arm. She pulls it back and cradles it against her chest.
"My leg," she reminds him.
Ah. He'd forgotten. "Can you sit up?"
She tries to rise, but crashes back heavily against the tub, letting out a small cry. "Nope," she hisses through gritted teeth.
"Maybe..." He stands up to hook his arms under hers and pulls her, slowly, to sit against the wall, and then takes her leg so that it hangs over the edge of the tub. "There. Now..."
The damage to her leg is considerable; he'll have to cut her jeans away. Something about that puts him on edge; she's a kid, barely legal, and he's not entirely comfortable doing this.
Granted, most eighteen-year-olds don't land in stranger's apartments with a gun and lot of injuries, but hey.
"Cut the damn things off."
"Hmm?" His head whips up, and though she's lost a lot of blood, she apparently has some to waste on a blush.
"Cut the jeans off. I mean, you've already ruined my top, so you might as well ruin the rest." She settles back against the wall, determinedly avoiding his eyes.
"Uh... okay." He picks the scissors up, and begins to cut the ruined fabric away. She hisses, and grabs his shoulder, squeezing it in pain. Luckily, her hips are relatively uninjured, so he doesn't have to contend with underwear. (There is a very small part of him that is disappointed, and another part that wants to know if she wears boxers or briefs. He banishes those parts as best he can.) There's less dirt in these wounds, and as he washes them he can't help but notice how well-muscled her thighs are. He wonders if she does some sort of martial art; it wouldn't surprise him.
"You're good at this," she murmurs, as he grabs the gauze.
"I got into a lot of fights when I was a kid," he replies as he tears a piece of the material off. "Somebody had to patch me up."
"I thought people didn't pick on the big kid?" There's laughter in her voice; she sounds young, more her age.
"The smart ones didn't." She snorts, and again, a stupid grin makes its way onto his face. What is with him? "You're done."
She makes to get up, but her exhausted body betrays her and she crashes down again.
"Did I say you could leave?"
She glares up at him. "Do I give a fuck about what you want?"
He stands up to tower over her. Being tall can be an issue when you're dealing with doors, but his height is incredibly useful when he needs to intimidate people. "You started giving a fuck when you broke into my flat looking like shit. I need answers."
She scowls like an angry child being denied a biscuit. He almost laughs, but that would make his case worse, so he refrains, lips curling up.
"Fine. You win. Get me out of this bathroom and then we can talk."
He complies, lifting her up again. Her bare leg brushes against him, and he concentrates on walking straight.
"I feel like a sack of potatoes," she complains as he sets her down on the couch.
"You are until you can walk," he calls as he walks back into the bedroom. It is, after all, winter, and he needs some sort of shirt. When he comes back, he swears Arya's eyes flicker to his chest, and she looks somewhat disappointed. Trying not to feel pleased, he settles down beside her.
"You're a terrible host," she says petulantly.
"I just fixed you up!"
"You haven't even offered me anything to drink," she grumbles.
"I don't have anything to drink." She must get a thrill out of antagonising people.
"Not even water?"
He grimaces. "Wouldn't risk it. Also, you got blood all over my carpet. I hope you'll pay for that."
She flaps her hand dismissively. "Whatever."
"Stop changing the subject, Miss Rich Bitch. What were you doing?"
She stares at her feet for a few long seconds. "Chasing the Bloody Mummers," she admits.
His voice pitches up."What? Why?" The Bloody Mummers? He's heard of them, but nothing good. What sticks in his mind is their reported penchant for chopping off people's hands and feet.
"They have my brother." Her voice is quiet.
He sighs. "If they have your brother, he's dead or worse."
He must have said the wrong thing; suddenly, her hackles rise, and she outright growls. "No! I've seen him, he's okay, I can get him back! I just need to-"
"Kill all the drug dealers in King's Landing?"
Her eyes meet his, and he sees something behind the grey. Steel, perhaps.
"If that's what it takes," she says, voice soft.
He has nothing to say to that. Maybe she's just a kid with a shiny bike, but there's so much raw determination in her that he almost believes she's capable of it, of eradicating all the filth that clings to this city.
"Where's your bike?" he says suddenly. She mentioned a helmet earlier, so she must have used it. By the gods, if she totalled it, he'll sprain her other elbow.
"I hid her, she's safe. I'm lucky I didn't fall off earlier; then, they would have caught me."
"Did you get any of them?" He hasn't forgotten the gun.
"No... I got one in the arm, though. He won't be up for a while." She sounds smug and satisfied.
"Well done." He makes a valiant effort not to sound sarcastic; it fails utterly, and she throws him a dirty look.
"Shut up."
They sit in companionable silence, until Gendry notices the time.
"Isn't it past your bedtime?"
She swears under her breath. "I can't go back, not like this. My parents will skin me... I told them I was staying with a friend."
"Well, you can," he offers.
She glares at him coldly. I don't have any friends here."
"I wasn't talking about that."
She stares at him vacantly, until something dawns on her face.
"Please? Can I?" When he nods, her eyes warm a little.
"I think you're big enough for the couch."
She shoots him a dirty look, but lies down anyway, grabbing a blanket from the back of the couch. "Gods, I'm wrecked..." She stretches languidly, like a lazy cat; Gendry is caught between laughing and staring as the hem of her (ruined) top shifts dangerously high. For his safety, he decides to leave. He quickly unfurls the ice pack from around her arm and stows it in the freezer.
"Night, I guess." He throws a glance over his shoulder as she fails to respond; her face is buried in the cushions, uninjured arm brushing against the ground. Her socked feet sway in the air, boots long abandoned.
Once in the safe confines of his room, he pulls his laptop out for the first time in two days. If Arya won't tell him her story, some doxing will. He accesses the database of registered motorcycle owners in King's Landing; when that comes up empty, he tries to think. Her motorcycle's reg... It wasn't CL, for Crownlands, like most of the vehicles he fixes; it was N. The North. He changes his search to the North, looking for female motorcyclists around 18 years old.
She pops after a few minutes of scrolling. He glances at her last name, and almost has a heart attack. Arya Stark, the profile proclaims, as she scowls from her license picture.
Stark. He searches it, and immediately find results; a healthy stock portfolio for Winterfell Inc., a picture of two boys of a similar age, one red-haired and one dark-haired, at a school event, speculations on a gossip site on the status of Joffrey Baratheon and Sansa Stark's relationship, a picture of the clan at some event. Arya stands in the middle, visibly displeased to be wearing a dress. The dark-haired boy is not present.
Fuck. He knew she was rich, but the Starks traced their ancestry all the way back to one of the seven great houses of old, and even further back to the Kings of the North, and before that, to the First Men. Technically, Arya is not Miss Rich Bitch. She's Lady Rich Bitch.
He sits back, and tries not to panic. He has a very heavily injured Arya Stark sleeping on his couch, and no idea what to do.
Groaning, he decides to sleep on it. Maybe when he wakes up, she'll be gone, and he'll never see her again.