Archive of Our Own

Motionless, as the lift rocketed down towards ground level. They stopped with a jolt, cords breaking away above them, and Hayden was quick to reload Raimi’s chip -Raimi’s brain-. For long moments as she struggled with the unrelenting metal, he was no longer motionless, jolting with energy and shivering with pain.
He gasped, struggling to take deeper breaths: one, two, three, before he could speak-

“What the fuck- ” He paused, coughing briefly and spitting into his hand. Blood. “What- what the fuck is going on?”. Hayden did not want to be the one to tell him, it wasn’t the time or place, but Raimi was staring up at her insistently, only moments ago having been reloaded and already wondering where is Yutani.

She got up.
“We have to keep moving.. We have to do this-”

“What happened Cale.” Raimi growled it this time, and his usually puppy-like face twisted into a scowl of pain and rage. There was confusion too. Hayden’s heart hurt. She didn’t want Raimi to hate her- but this wasn’t about her.

“He’s dead.” It wasn’t Cale that said it. It was Raimi, and it was not a question, but a statement. Cale was spared from having to tell him herself, but somehow it was worse. She kept his gaze, nodding slightly despite the fact that Raimi already knew.

“The k-key card- in my pocket.”

Hayden didn’t think; she retrieved it. She knew there was no way she could convince him to even stand, like she knew there was no way either of them would survive on their own. When Raimi told her to go, she obeyed.

The cop Raimi had called, that fucking idiot, got crushed under tons of soldered steel.

Hayden was shot in the leg.

She ran. She heard crunching and screaming and sobs; the sounds of dying, she remembered them well. She couldn’t tell the difference between her memories and the present. There was no use in looking back.

When she ran, the Warbeast ran after her.

She never made it past the first blast door.

.

Guilt. Raimi regretted his continued existence, clutching tight at whatever he could. Nothing. He felt like he had been beat up against the walls; everything hurt, and he couldn’t move. Maybe he had, at the mercy of a genius psychopath.

Dante and the Warbeast were standing in front of him. Dante was laughing, the machine held Raimi’s glare -through eyelashes, bloodied and thick- with the glint of fluorescent office lighting against it red streaked maw. Raimi could hear the screams.

If he had the ability to move; he wouldn’t run. He would press his hands as tight as he could over his ears, and squeeze his eyes shut to block out every noise. The sound of metal clattering against the flimsy low-budget flooring, Dante’s maniacal laugh, and more than anything, the ghost of those screams.

He squeezed his eyes shut to shelve away the images- gruesome images of their deaths… he hadn’t seen them, but that only made the “memories” more gruesome.

Limbs, guts, streaking the walls (hard metal blackened with soot), blood everywhere.

Stomach splayed out, long gashes, mouth red with blood; it dribbled down his chin and dripped to the floor, warm and wet.

He hadn’t even been there for Cale, yet he still saw her: laying on the ground surrounded by a pool of blood. Red in her eyes, in her hair, staining everything white and pure with crimson. He watched the blood darken into black, coagulating, sticky and rough.

Their faces held expressions of pain whether blackened, splayed open to reveal more red, muscle and fragile white bone, or preserved. The expression did not stale with time.

“Ah, ah,” Dante giggled, Raimi heard Dante’s fingers stroke down the bloodied cheek of his machine, a low metallic squeak, “no you don’t.”

Those fingers that were so gentle to emotionless steel, were piercing and harsh against Raimi’s face.

“Pay attention!”

He felt blood trickle down one cheek and choked, lips forced into a snarl by intruding claws. When a darkened metal fingertip dragged its way down Raimi’s tongue, he jolted, eyes flying open. Once he had opened his eyes, he couldn’t stop the tears.

Dante laughed, leaving his hand in something resembling a caress, gripping Raimi’s cheek. “There you go.” Dante smiled . Raimi gagged, and then Jack withdrew. He tsked, walking backwards with clunky steps.

“This could’ve been avoided you know-”
Raimi didn’t respond.
“I mean! You could’ve just given up!”
No response.
“You would’ve lived, sporting maybe a few new scars , but you would have lived ! Your friends would have lived too- all I wanted was Cale...”
Still no response, and Dante shouted: “It’s your fault she’s dead you know, for trying to be so goddamn heroic ! It’s your fault that they’re all dead!”
Raimi sobbed, but that wasn’t the response Dante wanted. He was bored, but he laughed nonetheless as he let go of the button and the machine recalibrated, staring Raimi down with its polished, blood tinged steel.

Raimi wasn’t scared of the Warbeast, even after having been stripped of the metal Hardman suit, his armor. He wasn’t scared of Dante. He was scared of the thoughts, broken up bits and pieces of memories. He didn’t know which were true, but none were happy. He remembered being happy once, and then that was gone too.

Chemically of course, it doesn’t matter what it is that you are scared of; the reaction is the same. Raimi stared up at the cool fluorescent lights, bloodied and bruised, unable to even run- not wanting to run-, as the Warbeast descended.