Steven and Fionna warp back to the strawberry field after the fight in the G.U.N outpost.

Steven steps out of the platform and walks one side to other in nervousness. "Holy goddamn shit, we almost died! I wasn't in control of the situation not for a second. Holy shit!"

As he walks, Fionna sighs, sitting on the platform and curling slightly in sadness.

Steven doesn't notice at first, but when he does, he calm down. He took a seat next to her, putting a hand on her back to comfort her. "Don't worry, Finn, everything will be alright. We're still alive."

She shakes her head and looks away from him. "... It's not that, Steven."

He raises a brow. "Huh? So… what's it?"

Fionna takes a second to answer, choosing her words very carefully. "... I'm a burden, ain't I?"

Steven froze, his hand still resting on her back as her words hit him like a punch to the gut. For a moment, he didn't know how to respond.

"A burden?" He repeated softly, disbelief in his voice. "Fionna, what are you talking about?"

She still wouldn't look at him, her fingers fidgeting with the fabric of her jacket. "Back there, you were the one keeping us alive. And me? I'm just… standing on the sidelines. If that soldier hadn't held me back, I might've just made things worse. I don't have your powers, your instincts, your experience. I'm just dead weight."

Steven blinked, taken aback. He opened his mouth to argue, but her words stopped him. He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he leaned back slightly on the platform. "Fionna, you're not dead weight. Not even close." He sighs. "You're way too far from being useless."

Despite his words, she remained quiet.

He looked at her and sighed. He shifted on his place his voice softer now. "Just so you know, you saved me from doing something stupid the moment we met."

Fionna's head snapped up at Steven's words, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Steven gave a small, tired smile and leaned back slightly, trying to find the right words. "Remember when we met? Those guys were going to rape you and I saved you, then the corrupt cop arrested me, and you came to the prison to get me free."

Fionna's face softened, her eyes flickering with a mix of surprise and understanding. She leaned back slightly, thinking over his words. "Yeah, I remember… but I don't see how—"

"I was going to rob a bank." He interrupts her. "I was going to rob a bank with my own hands, then I'd just run away with my powers and take something for fun. I was already tired. I thought that the world had enough of me. When I saw you, I decided to save you because I wanted to do at least one good thing in my whole life. When the cop arrested me, I regretted saving you, but when you came to take me outta the cell…" He chuckles. "I felt my heart tight. You must remember I was in denial at first, but you insisted… and this insistence… this insistence to take me outta trouble made saving you worth it. The time we passed together is the longest I ever stuck with anyone and…" He sighs and looks away blushing a little. "And I guess you're the first person I ever actually cared about and didn't kick me away."

Fionna's eyes widened slightly as Steven's words hung in the air. She hadn't expected him to say something like that, especially not with such vulnerability. For a moment, she remained silent, her mind racing as she processed what he'd just shared.

She shifted slightly on the platform, her hands clasping tightly together in her lap. "I... didn't know." She said softly, her voice almost a whisper. "I always thought I was just tagging along for the ride, you know? Trying to keep up with someone like you, who's so... strong."

Steven chuckled weakly, shaking his head. "Strong? Well, what is 'being strong'? I'm good at beating people up, that's for sure, but that's not all. Atenas considered the physical strength and combat experience extremely relevant, but Esparta was more philosophical and preferred intelligence…" He looks away. "Or it was the contrary?" He shakes his head. "What I mean is: You're not dead-weight. You have your own strength, everyone does, you just need to discover it."

Fionna took a deep breath, letting Steven's words settle in her chest. The weight of what he said didn't quite lift her sadness, but it definitely gave her a new perspective. She'd always seen herself as a little too weak, too fragile compared to Steven's strength. But hearing him talk like that… it made her feel like maybe she wasn't as invisible as she thought.

"Thanks, Steven." She murmured, though her voice still carried the weight of lingering doubts.

He smiles. "Anytime…"

A comfortable silence settles between them. Steven slowly moves closer to her, their fingers brushing a little, the air between them seemed to shift. Steven could feel his heart race just a little faster, the warmth of Fionna's presence grounding him after the chaos they'd just faced.

Fionna, still a little unsure of herself, didn't pull away. Instead, she hesitated, then gently placed her hand in his.

"Finn…" Steven started, his voice softer than before, his thumb brushing lightly across the back of her hand. "You've been through a lot, more than most people could even handle. Don't ever think you're not strong enough, alright?"

Fionna squeezed Steven's hand gently, feeling a warmth spread through her chest at his words. She looked up at him, meeting his gaze for the first time since the battle, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she didn't feel so alone in her struggles. "I'll try," she said softly, her voice a little steadier now, though there was still a hint of uncertainty lingering.

Steven gave her a reassuring smile, the kind that reached his eyes and made her feel a little lighter. "That's all I can ask for." He said, giving her hand a comforting squeeze.

They sat in silence for a while, the gentle hum of the world around them a stark contrast to the chaos they had just experienced. The strawberry field, bathed in soft twilight, felt peaceful, almost like a moment of respite after a storm. But as much as they both needed the quiet, the weight of what had happened still hung in the air.

Some hours have passed already and Colonel Andrew and Commander Graves are watching the screen that displays Fionna's location.

They keep staring to the screen in silence until she sighs. "C'mon, Andy! Can't we go attack him already? We know where they are and where is that warp pad!"

Andrew sighs and shakes his head, turning his head to Graves. "No, Ashley. We need to wait. If we attack him right now we'll make him use the platform. If he uses it, and we keep heading after him, he'll eventually realize that we're tracking them and will destroy the tracking device, and we'll lose our best chance. We have to wait for him to use the most platforms he can and then surround every single one of these to make him lose his escape routes." He stares at the screen. "Taking information from that outpost was strategy, but Steven wouldn't do something like that. He's either learning or that girl is helping him. No matter what it is, we have to be careful."

Back at the strawberry field, Steven and Fionna are holding the device and searching for useful info… but they only find useless stuff.

Steven stares at it with gritted teeth. "... Seriously? That's all we got from that PC?"

Fionna takes a second to think and sighs. "Steven, I think that's planted information."

Steven groaned in frustration, tossing the device onto the grass as he leaned back, resting his head in his hands. "Planted information? So, we risked our necks for a decoy?" His voice carried an edge of bitterness, the adrenaline of the earlier mission still lingering in his veins.

Fionna nodded slowly, her gaze fixed on the small screen of the device. "It makes sense, doesn't it? The outpost was too easy to infiltrate, and the defenses… I mean, they weren't weak, but they weren't what you'd expect from G.U.N." She looked at Steven, her expression conflicted. "They were leading us to find this, Steven. They wanted us to think we got something important."

Steven rubbed his eyes, still frustrated by the dead end. "So they set us up… fantastic. We just walked right into their trap."

Fionna stared at the device for a moment longer, then her eyes narrowed. "Wait. I think there's still hope." She glanced over at Steven, her voice quieter now, more focused. "I've heard from programmer friends that even if deleted, archives can remain on the database. Maybe there is still something useful for us in that."

Fionna's words made Steven pause, his frustration momentarily overshadowed by a glimmer of hope. He looked at her, studying the determination in her eyes. "You're saying we can recover something from this mess?"

She nodded, her fingers already moving across the device's buttons with renewed focus. "Yeah, I've seen it happen before. Sometimes files are just hidden or buried deep in a system, even after they've been deleted. If we can access the right backup or trace the data flow, we might still find something useful."

Steven sat up straighter. "So, how do we do it?"

Fionna bit her lip, her eyes flicking back and forth across the screen. "We'll need to bypass a few layers of security. It's gonna take a bit of time, but I can try running a deeper scan for residual files. If they tried to erase everything, they might have overlooked something."

Steven shrugged. "Well, feel free to try. We have nothing better to do now"

With a deep breath, Fionna set to work, her fingers dancing across the device with a kind of practiced precision. Moments passed in tense silence, the quiet hum of the device the only sound between them.

Then, just as Steven was about to ask how much longer it would take, Fionna's eyes widened. "Got it." She muttered under her breath, tapping a few more keys. A small, encrypted file appeared on the screen, its contents unreadable at first glance.

"Is that it?" Steven asked, stepping closer, his voice filled with both hope and surprise.

Fionna bit her lip. "It's encrypted, but I can crack it. They wouldn't expect someone to dig this deep."

A few tense seconds later, the file's contents began to reveal themselves, lines of code and encrypted messages slowly turning into readable data. A map of locations flickered to life on the screen, alongside a list of names and dates that seemed to reference upcoming operations.

Fionna scanned the data quickly, her eyes narrowing with recognition. "This… this is a list of G.U.N's active bases. And here—" She pointed to a specific section of the screen. "This looks like a scheduled operation. They're developing something. If we intercept this, we could get a significant advantage."

Steven stepped closer. "You're saying we just hit them before they hit us?"

Fionna nodded, her gaze steady. "Exactly. We might have just found the biggest opportunity we've had since we started this."

A slow smile spread across Steven's face. "You did it, Finn. You really did it."

Fionna managed a small, relieved smile of her own, feeling the weight of the previous hours finally start to lift. "We did it. Together."

Steven paused for a moment, his expression turning serious once more. "Alright, let's make sure they know we're not the ones being hunted anymore. We've got a fight ahead of us."

Fionna clenched her fists, the fire of determination lighting up her eyes. "Let's finish this."

With that, they stood together, ready to face the storm that was about to come their way, knowing that for once, they were the ones with the upper hand.

[TO BE CONTINUED]