Assistance: A Blogsary Short

i.

When Aether first hears of Peters’ accident a first year into their being a squad, the last thing she expects herself to do was to promptly lose her shit in front of a large portion of headquarters’ various other employees. Tadashi physically restrains her from marching up to the agent spreading the news; he finds himself with his arms locked around her and holding her tightly, teeth grit as she demands and yells.

Aether loses control in that moment and lets go of her careful, calculated self. Tadashi doesn’t quite realize how harrowing this reality is until they’re back in a spare office, Aether pacing back and forth, muttering until realizing what had happened and breaking while swearing.

The situation: it was a robbery incident, something at one of the city’s larger and well-known banks. Peters had been recruited to join the team, and without much thought about it, agreed. After all, Squad A wasn’t as busy as they were, and he was craving to go out there and do something.

Peters going out without alerting them wasn’t the problem, no. Tadashi could scold him about that another time with Aether staring him down with her cold gaze. The problem was that he had gotten shot—Peters had gotten in the way when one of the gunmen had gone awry with a gun, and the blue-eyed American was the one shot instead of a child or someone younger.

Tadashi watches Aether cry over the possibility of losing someone close to her; neither of them knew how fatal the injury was, but reportedly there was blood and blood was never entirely a good sign, more so when it pooled around you.

“He’s such a fucking moron,” she swears, shaken and horrified by the news. “Fucking, fucking moron—”

“I know,” he manages. “I know.”

They eventually visit a number of hours later. Aether’s eyes are puffy and her clothes are rumpled and Tadashi wonders if she was going to hit him, but before he can stop a potential fight from happening, she sets down a vase of flowers on the table by his bed.

Peters attempts to say her name, but it comes out in a croak. Tadashi glances at Aether cautiously, but she can only fold her arms over her chest.

“You shouldn’t have gone there.”

“Stupid,” Peters manages. A groan after, “Idiot.”

“You are. Don’t make us worry like that ever again.”

(Peters is surprised by her words; Tadashi is surprised at the tenderness in her voice.)

ii.

Peters and Tadashi are aware that she overworks herself.

It’s not exactly something to be proud of; they’ve caught her treating coffee like water on the weekdays and wine like coffee on the weekends on different occasions. Nevertheless, it ends up the same: with them reprimanding her gently, Tadashi reminding her to take a break and Peters warning her that she could really fuck herself over the more she continued to do that.

She listened four times out of ten; on the other six, she did it her own way and worked herself from morning until early evening. Tadashi was sure that she continued working herself to the brim when she got home but couldn’t stop her; despite being close friends, he wasn’t sure if they were at the point of him actually barging into her apartment and having to physically stop her from working.

The day did eventually come, but for all the wrong reasons. It was a workday, the mood was tense, and somehow they were all more on edge than what was considered as ‘normal’. Aether rushed back and forth between offices, following orders and barking out orders. Peters and Tadashi worked together and passed by her, both exchanging concerned looks until—

“Agent Maxwell? Agent Maxwell!” both heads whipped towards her general direction at the same time, and Peters lurched forward just in time to catch her as she fell. Tadashi and Ross exchanged horrified gazes before the latter snatched his phone from his pocket, quickly dialing for medical services. Peters helplessly held onto her, shaking her lightly, trying to talk her into waking up but the damn woman just wouldn’t—

“We have to get her to a hospital,” Ross snaps at Tadashi, but it seems so far away. Peters holds her a little tighter, supporting her helplessly and completely unable to say anything until medics arrive and she’s pried from his arms. It feels cold, somehow, and the cold wraps around him and pinches his arms.

Ross drives him to the hospital to follow. Peters feels weird sense of numb; it lurches in his stomach uncomfortably. Once they get there, they say who they are, mention who they’re visiting. Tadashi greets them much later with a troubled face, mentions words like fatigue and stress that fly over his head.

“—hasn’t been eating,” Ross speculates. Peters snaps back slowly to reality, remembers the times she passed on eating with them in a nearby coffee shop, having dinner with them at this great place that just opened and had nachos to die for.

When she wakes, Peters is the first to speak and calls her an idiot. Aether looks affronted for a moment, but remembers and is the one to shoot back a sheepish smile while hooked to the IV. “Sorry,” she apologizes. “I’m a hypocrite.”

iii.

Mack had a tendency to burn out.

After all, his work was less ‘running around and serve justice’ but more of a scientific kind of thing. He had to save or change the world somehow by doing forensics or some shit, and that was enough to keep him going.

But he burnt out sometimes, sometimes needing to step into Aether’s office and proceed to lie down on one of the comfortable sofas. Aether would barely blink at the intrusion and would merely ask for him to close the door. “Don’t waste the air conditioning,” she would tell him while looking through her notes. A muttered got it would happen, ring silently through the air and he would eventually lie on the comfortable couch.

The rest of them noticed when he would. Mack would be more sullen, even quieter, had the tendency to bunch up his hair into his fists and would revert into a somehow stonier version of himself. “Ignore me,” he’d usually tell them with a blank expression.

“Nope.” Someone—usually Peters—would protest, and so would begin the attempt to help. Unlike Tadashi who needed indirect help, Mack preferred his head on. So they would talk it out as much as possible, sometimes needing to go out to drink, sometimes just needing to get away from the office as much as they could.

On one occasion, they had ended up in Peters’ apartment. The work was long discarded and they were busy lounging on the couch, tangled up in each other without a single doubt or qualm about it. “I’d call this weird, but I feel like I’d be breaking the mood.” Mack deadpanned.

“Don’t ruin it.” Aether stretched; Tadashi dodging narrowly to miss being hit in the face with one of her fists. “This is the only time the four of us can get along this well and I’d rather not really ruin that.” In response, Peters merely raised a half-finished bottle of beer.

Mack couldn’t help but smile despite himself and let himself lean against Tadashi, who carefully supported Aether without making the position too compromising. Peters, of course, had his feet in Mack’s lap without a care in the world, and they were watching—

“Change the channel,” Tadashi suggested. Immediately came a please from Aether and a no from the other two males, to which Aether groaned into her hand. “Please change the channel.”

“Shitty reality shows tend to cure all burnouts,” Peters spoke.

(Mack knew that was bullshit. It was the company that acted as the cure.)

iv.

They’re aware of what had happened to Tadashi’s former team.

It’s not exactly something that had to be kept a secret; for the members of HQ, what had happened to Squad S was a slap to the face and a reminder that absolutely anything could happen. Hardly anyone speaks of it—not even Eri, who completely refuses to divulge any other information aside from “Don’t.”

They notice Tadashi’s drop in mood when the month of the incident draws closer. Tadashi becomes much more quiet, his colorful personality dims slightly as does his usually life-colored neckties. “We have to do something,” Aether whispers. Mack is stuck on the fence, Peters disagrees and mentions something like wanting to keep Tadashi’s privacy intact.

The group’s eldest eventually shuts down on a certain date. He doesn’t come to work, as expected. Almost everyone knew what he was doing—it was an open secret at that point, an elephant in the room that went noticed but no one dared to bring up. Aether repeats when he doesn’t come to work: “We have to do something.”

The remaining members of the Squad attempt to be there. Aether drops by his apartment with bags of takeout, Peters accompanies him when he does his morning jog, and Mack maintains contact online, sharing articles worth reading as reminder that the world went on despite his grief.

All three of them say nothing about the incident, about what happened years ago. Enough was said, and Tadashi needed none of the sympathies or the apologies. They new that well. Eventually Monday arrives and so does Tadashi; they act normal, discuss, behave, everything in between to make him feel like they weren’t walking on eggshells.

(He knows that the way he’s been acting, the rest of the squad would try and cheer him up in ways that weren’t too obvious. He noticed anyway, but was grateful for the help.)

“Hey,” Aether nudges him, coffee in hand. She offers it, “Feel better?” Tadashi offers a tired smile and takes the coffee, takes a sip.

“I think I feel better, thank you. Where are they?” just as Aether was about to respond to that, Peters and Mack burst into the room with plastic bags of food and proclaiming an ‘early breakfast’. He merely looked at her and she looked at him back, a smile tugging at his lips.

“You didn’t have to do this—”

“We wanted to,” Peters interrupted. “So suck it up. Mostly because Mack and I are hungry and so is Aether, but she doesn’t want to admit it.” Aether shook her head at that and tugged his hand, pulling him to where the two were setting up.

“Come on,” she urged. “Eat something.”