Headquarters
Seattle, WA
The United States of America
June 2017
Peters and Mack didn’t know how the argument had escalated that badly.
All four members of Squad A were gathered in Aether’s office for debriefing purposes; after Aether had recounted the events of the day, Tadashi followed up with his usual spiel concerning their own personal safety. “Put yourselves first,” he reminded them. Throwing a glance in Aether’s direction, he continued: “We’re not going to get anything done if we don’t try and take care of ourselves. And that goes for all of us.”
“I can’t help but feel that you’re only targeting one of us,” Peters quipped. Tadashi said nothing; Mack tried not to look at Aether. The female merely glanced away and folded her arms over her chest. Looking unaffected was not one of her strengths; Mack could tell by the look in her eyes that she had gotten Tadashi’s message loud and clear. “So let’s address the elephant in the room—”
“No need.” Aether waved it off. Tadashi gave a frown and was about to speak up, to contest, but Aether carried on quickly. “I get it. I need to rest.”
“It’s not that simple, Aether,” he responded. The two of them looked at each other, Tadashi only looking more upset and Aether clearly trying not to get agitated. Peters muttered a yikes under his breath and Mack inhaled deeply. It was rare that the two ever got into arguments—if anything, the two who bickered the most were Aether and Peters, but a fight as serious as the storm that was brewing had last occurred long ago.
And based on the direction they were going, it was going to turn into a disaster faster than they would even expect.
“We should probably stop them.”
“We should,” Mack agreed quietly. Aether and Tadashi’s voices seemed to increase in volume, Aether balling her hands at her sides and Tadashi refuting each point she attempted to make with a crafted one of his own. They were frustrated, annoyed; the longer the argumen was drawn out, the worse it would be upon rainfall.
“I get it, I’m overworking—don’t you think I know that already?”
“I know that you know, but why do you keep denying it?”
“I—who said I was denying it?” Tadashi was about to answer when Aether shook her head and shot back, “I’m not denying, Tad. I’m not denying any of it; I know I’m tired and that I’m stressed out. I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Then prove to me that I shouldn’t.” His frown grew deeper and his voice grew a little less controlled, a little more emotional. “Because based on how you’ve been treating yourself, it seems like you need constant reminders before God knows what’s going to happen to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me!” Aether snapped. Mack jumped, Peters approached the youngest and the eldest members of the Squad cautiously; “Why do you keep thinking that something’s going to happen to me when nothing will?”
All of them could feel the tension growing but none of them wanted to address it. Aether’s temper was flaring as was Tadashi’s; that was evident. But Aether’s fire came from irritation, Tadashi’s came from concern, and the only commonality between the two was that it sparked due to the day’s events. Mack had to admit that it wasn’t the best day for investigation—almost nothing had been accomplished, and he could tell in the smallest of moments that Aether was beating herself up for it.
It showed through the cracks. This was one of them.
(Tadashi tried to seal the cracks.
It didn't always work.)
“You don’t know that,” Tadashi argued.
“And neither do you.”
“I know, Aether.” The Korean’s voice grew tight. “Things out of our control can happen. Things beyond what we can handle can happen, and I’m not going to let any of that happen to you—”
“Why don't you trust me to take care of myself?”
A pause. Tadashi took a breath. Aether looked him in the eye, and there was a mess of emotions on her face. Neither Peters nor Mack knew how to properly intervene in fear of being caught within the storm themselves.
As much as both hated to admit it, this was a shared downfall by the two of them. Aether was emotional and so was Tadashi. Both of them thought with their hearts and wore their emotions on their sleeve. That wasn’t to say that neither of them were illogical, definitely not—Aether thought clearly during missions and tended to tuck her feelings away, but those feelings would most often rush back to the surface sooner than she would want.
And Tadashi—Tadashi was hard to explain.
“Why don't you trust me to take care of myself, Tadashi?” Aether repeated. She narrowed her gaze. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. She kept staring him in the eye, waiting for an answer that would put the entire argument to rest.
She was tired. He was tired. Both of them were tired.
The wrong things tended to come out in moments of quick-tempered exhaustion.
“Things happened before,” he started in a tight voice. “You know that. You know what happened. You know everything that happened, Aether, and I’m not going to let you become just like them, I'm not going to let you go out there and get yourself kil—”
(And the thing with Aether was that she tended to overthink things so, so easily.)
“Stop it.”
Tadashi stopped at once. He looked at her, she looked at him, and both of them saw something similar in each other’s eyes. She looked like she wanted to cry. He looked like he was reliving so many memories at once.
“...Aether.”
A pause, a shaky breath. For some reason, she felt stifled instead of protected, choked instead of safe. “You’re not my father, so just…just stop, okay? Stop. I don’t need it. I don’t need it, I don’t need this, I can take care of myself, I’m leaving,” she ended in a shakier voice, tearing her eyes away from Tadashi and letting the pain in her voice trickle out.
She needed out.
Before Peters could stop her, before Mack could tell her to wait, and before she registered the look of pain in Tadashi’s eyes, Aether hastily collected her things and left without another word.
The remaining three said nothing. Peters was in disbelief at what had just happened, Mack couldn’t muster the words to say, and Tadashi—
Tadashi simply looked hurt.
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