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True to Yourself

Chapter 20: Deus Ex Machina

Summary:

What was happening behind the scenes to pull off Marzia's perfect timing (or how Fantismal really had this planned out but Jack didn't know)

Notes:

This actually takes place during chapter 18, but as the very nature of this chapter means we have to leave Jack's head, it didn't fit in the flow of the story. I hope you enjoy this slice of a different life!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"That's not a good idea."

Sight glanced up from her laptop as her husband paced the room, drawling into the phone like the super he was. He caught her eye and rolled his, flapping his hand like a mouth and mouthing blah blah blah at her. She giggled. The Brain always got testy when he had to suck up to the CC.

"Mr. Director, with all due respect, they're winning. I-" He grit his teeth, pulling a face. "If you show up like that... Mr. Director, will you let me finish?"

CC didn't know they were married. That they knew each other in real life, knew each other as supers. The Brain had figured it out first, of course he had, the stupid genius. He had nearly given her a heart attack when he called her out. They'd been dating for a year and were lying outside at night, waiting for the fireworks of a Fourth of July display. He'd reached over to take her hand. Do you trust me? he asked.

Of course I do, though I have no idea why sometimes.

He'd rolled to face her, staring at her face as if he were committing her to his memory. I know who you are...

I should hope so!

...Sight the super.

Yeah, that had been heart attack inducing. She'd almost gone invisible right then and there to get away, only she was wearing normal clothes that would not have gone invisible and he had been holding her hand tightly. He'd shushed her, tugged her close, whispered his super identity into her ear and apologized as she beat at him with her hands. Stupid genius. Worst sense of timing, best sense of perception.

That had been the moment she knew she was going to marry him.

Living with a genius was hard, but he did his best to make it easier on her. It helped that despite being a nearly-insufferable know-it-all, he was also genuinely a huge dork and an even bigger cat-lover. It was hard to stay annoyed with someone you saw sprawled on the floor making baby-talk to your shared kitten.

While at the CC, the two kept up the impression that they couldn't stand each other. She had actually started it, flipping him off one day and grinning invisibly as he choked on his words, trying not to laugh. Their animosity had grown to nearly-comical proportions over the years. A handful of their fellow supers had reached out to her, all women, Luna and Ripper and Jollie, asking if things were okay, if The Brain had been inappropriate and done something to her, asking if he needed a swift kick in his oversized nuts to put him back in line. She'd confessed to them that it was just a joke, and now they were all helping her perpetuate the scene, siding with her whenever she faced off against him in the base.

He always knew when he'd actually crossed a line, though. He could be dumb at times, but he was never stupid and he always apologized. She loved him for that. He was the perfect guy, really, even if he couldn't figure out how to do his own laundry and hated grocery shopping.

Well... the laundry thing kind of sucked. She hated doing laundry too, but if she didn't do it, he wouldn't realize when their clean clothes were about to run out.

"Mr. Director, shut your fucking mouth!"

Sight crammed the side of her hand into her mouth, biting down hard to keep her laughter quiet. As a normal human, her husband tried very hard to never, ever let a word more foul than "crap" escape his mouth. As a super, he swore like a sailor. It was all part of the act, the story that they were not who they actually were.

"I realize this is a goddamn rare opportunity. I get that they've been evading you at every fucking turn and you're looking bad. But you're looking bad! I guarantee that if you show up at that party with guns out, they will not be the ones going down."

Oh dear. This was about Warfstache and Key. Markiplier and Jacksepticeye. Sight's giggles evaporated, and she put her laptop aside. Had CC caught them? After all the work The Brain was doing to cover what little trail they were managing to leave? He'd tracked down their suits and destroyed them before CC could get DNA from them. He kept them from freezing Jack's bank account like they had Mark's because they didn't have proof that he was the rogue Key, only suspicions, and they had no authority to act on suspicions. He hacked their accounts and fudged location data for their videos and tweets and erased check-in information from the various hotels and motels they stayed at. Warfstache and Key were the first supers who had escaped the Crusaders without being immediately caught by CC, and neither The Brain nor Sight wanted to see them get killed. They had to be careful, though, that CC never suspected they were helping the rogues. The Brain was CC's pet genius, after all. If they knew how little he actually followed their rules...

"All right, technically, yes, that godawful ammunition does have the capacity to take out Warfstache. Theoretically. If you manage to hit him in the right spot on the first try, or after enough of a pause that his powers calm. And yes, it will liquefy Key from the inside out. But if you kill them, you will make them fucking martyrs. They will be martyrs and you will be the goddamn villains and..." The Brain's expression was cold as he met Sight's gaze across the room. "Of course I'm on your side, Mr. Director. That is why I am trying to prevent you... as you wish. Yes Mr. Director. I realize you are in charge. Yes, Mr. Director. Yes. But I will ensure the record shows I opposed this idiotic move. Yes, Mr. Director. Of course you still have my support. Good-bye, Mr. Director. And good luck."

The Brain hung up and stared at his phone for a moment before throwing it into the couch as hard as he could. Sight tsked, rescuing it from between the cushions. "Good thing you're not actually super-physically-powered, or you'd need a new one. Again."

"All our efforts, all of them, wasted!"

"What happened?"

The Brain threw himself down beside Sight, his head falling onto her shoulder. She curled an arm around his slim shoulders, stroking his soft brown hair. She was only one of two other supers who knew The Brain didn't thwart the 'all skin must be covered' super rule. Ripper had made him a fantastically realistic fat suit. Every time Sight saw him in it, she had to grin and be grateful for her own face coverage.

"Off-duty officer spotted Mark at a movie theater," The Brain grumbled into Sight's shoulder. "Called it in. Mark and Jack are going to a party tonight. They have a location and a time, so they're calling in a full-force attack."

Sight's fingers stilled. "At a party?"

"A party at which Warfstache is the guest of honor, because it's the one-year anniversary of an alien attack on Miami."

"A party," Sight repeated flatly. "A party to celebrate how awesome the supers are for saving people? And CC's going to attack?"

"The risk of casualty is a small price to pay for the chance to stop these two renegades from wreaking more havoc on innocent civilians." The Brain couldn't imitate the director's voice, but he tried.

Sight pusher him back to look him in the eyes. "They're going to kill people. To maybe kill Mark and Jack?"

"They won't kill Mark," The Brain shook his head. "They have to punch through his chest without hitting bone on the very first shot. They don't have anyone accurate enough if he's got a shirt on."

"But Jack..."

"If they surround the party, he won't be able to get out," The Brain said quietly. "He's fast, but he can't vault over a human without help. They just have to keep shooting in, and they'll hit him eventually."

"Or each other..."

"They'll have armor on. He won't. And if he goes down, Mark won't be able to keep evading. They'll eventually find a way to stop him...if he doesn't just flat-out surrender from getting Jack killed."

Sight held The Brain's gaze for a full minute. "What are we going to do?" she asked quietly, not wanting to think about her friends dying in Miami.

"We need a healer."

"Jollie," Sight said, but The Brain was shaking his head.

"She's too slow."

"She's the most effective."

"Speed is key," The Brain said with a wry little smile. "We need Luna."

Sight winced. "You've never felt Luna's healing."

"I've heard it hurts worse than the injuries," The Brain sighed. "But we can't help it. If Jack gets hit in the torso, he'll have seconds, maybe. Luna's our fastest healer. I think Jack'll be fine with a lot of pain if he gets to stay alive."

"Eh..." Sight did agree with The Brain, and she knew Jack would as well, though he might not feel that way at the time. Luna went with them onto the battlefield because she could heal them instantly. She had saved many a super's life when aliens and monsters and guns proved superior to their armor. Her powers repaired what was broken, but she had no finesse over her touch. Your body went from falling apart to fine, and your brain couldn't cope. The conflicting messages of OMG DYING and hey, nothing's wrong threw up red flags and your brain went into overdrive trying to compensate for what it was sure was catastrophic tissue destruction, triggering nerves to fire and pain to flare even though there was no damage left. It took time for the nerves to calm down, for the pain to subside and normal function to resume. If Jack got shot and Luna healed him, he'd be all but paralyzed from the pain for at least a day. "We'll see if he thanks you after the fact."

"Get dressed." The Brain sat up, rubbing his face. "I'll reconfigure the teleporters."

Sight slid off the couch and headed for their room. Her super costume was easy to recreate: it was a green morphsuit. Her official uniform had extra padding and armor inside, but after Ripper discovered the green-screen suits were the one color Sight could make invisible, Sight made sure she had plenty of spares in her normal life. Naked invisibility was terrifying.

When she returned in her suit, The Brain was sitting cross-legged on their couch, both of their CC teleporters on the coffee table in front of him. He was texting on his phone, probably warning Luna that she was coming.

"What's the plan?"

"This one will take you to Luna," The Brain gestured at her teleporter. "That one will take you to the party coordinates. You go to Luna, give her both. She goes to Miami, picks up the boys, goes back home. You reconfigure yours to bring you back here. She'll watch over them while I clean up the mess."

"Simple enough." Sight slipped the Miami teleporter into her suit, keeping the other one in her hand. They were flattened spheres with five buttons on top. The big one activated them. The smaller ones were used to program locations. None of the supers were supposed to know how they worked, they were just each given one that linked them to the CC headquarters...so of course The Brain figured out how to reprogram them and used the fact that he and Sight had two in the same house for cheap, fast transportation all around the world. "You gonna tell me about Luna, or are you going to make me be surprised like you did with Warf?"

"Luna is Marzia."

"CutiePieMarzia!?" Of course The Brain had figured out who the various supers actually were. He saw patterns and behaviors, extrapolating things like time zones and when they were active to pinpoint locations and likely identities. He had hunches on most of them and was fairly convinced of a handful that he had actually met personally. He didn't tell her, though, unless she needed to know. She wasn't confident in her ability to hide secrets as well as he was. "Why are so many supers YouTubers?"

The Brain, also known as MatPat the Game Theorist, gave her a dry look. "For the same reason we are."

"Huh." Steph twisted her long hair into a messy bun, pinning it in place. "Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question." Their YouTube life gave them the best hours to save the world. It made sense that the other supers who showed up frequently for missions had the same lackadaisical work hours. Not all YouTubers were supers, and not all supers were YouTubers, but they did seem to be unusually closely linked. "Is Felix?"

"Not as far as I can tell." Matthew stretched his arms over his head, then got to his feet and caught Steph by the hips. "You be careful, okay?" He touched his nose to hers, showing his concern openly. "If they find out we're doing this..."

"They've never found out," Steph answered quietly, leaning up to kiss him gently. "And I'm always careful."

"I hate you going on missions."

"But I need to."

Matthew sighed, tucking his face against her hair and taking a deep breath. "Love you."

"Love you too." Steph nuzzled Matthew's cheek before taking a step back. She drew her hood up, covering her face, and faded from sight. Only the teleporter in her hand remained visible. Matthew took a step back, gathering up Skip in his arms so the cat wouldn't be accidentally teleported along with the invisible woman. "I'll be back before you know it."

"I'll be waiting..."

Notes:

Thank you so, so much to everyone who has come along for this story! A huge thanks goes to Eltrkbarbarella, who told me to write this, drew me pictures, and dragged me into the world of actually writing Septiplier. Without her, none of this would have happened.

I do have another massive Septiplier story collaboration underway, but as always, nothing will be posted until the story is done. In the meantime, feel free to follow me on tumblr (fantismal.tumblr.com) and give me a message or ask. I love talking to you guys!

I might be writing other stuff while working on the big project. I have no other plot bunnies right now, but I'm always open to adopting some. I'm terrible at requests, though. You have to give me a big fluffy bunny with sad eyes to catch my interest...

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