“Take 'em,” Bransen said of the PopTarts, giving his head a subtle shake in the negative when Dave offered to split them. “The Danish will be enough to tide me over a few hours,” he said, and it was true. Being so lithesome as he was, he didn't require too much fuel to operate and he knew there was more than likely enough sugar packed in the baked snack to energize his slighter limbs—'til the early afternoon at least—so he was happy to be left the snack. Anyway, Bransen wasn't feeling particularly hungry at the moment, so the toaster pastries didn't sound altogether too appealing at the moment anyway. He left the Danish untouched while he tended to Dave's arm. [I]“Are you sure you want to do this?”[/I] the suit had asked, momentarily diverting Bransen's hyperfocus from the devoir of dabbing his wound with a clean cotton pad. At first, the engineer hadn't any idea to what Dave had been referring when he posed his question so, impulsively, a faint crease formed in Bran's brow when he looked back up at the other man, bewildered. [I]Am I sure about what exactly?[/I] he almost demanded, [I]Running away with a stranger? Or leaving my life and loved ones behind to forever wonder whatever might've happened—what might've come about my fate? How can I possibly be sure about any of that?[/I] It was only when Dave pressed on, suggesting Bransen take shifts with the driving that the engineer realized Dave had only been responding to Bransen's mien of apprehension. “Oh,” he said foolishly after the penny dropped, touching the back of one hand to his forehead, thinking, [I]Calm yourself. Don't be so quick to get defensive.[/I] “Ah, yeah, it's fine,” Bransen insisted, “I think I've got it.” Dave carried on by responding to Bran's light effort in conversation, mentioning possibly crashing another night in yet another motel. (Is this what their lives would become? Shitty motels and swapping cars? [I]With any luck, the next stop won't be too much more dingy than this one,[/I] he thought dryly, dabbing an antiseptic over Dave's arm before gathering a square of sterile gauze, [I]I mean, really, how shabby can a place of business truly get?[/I]) As Bransen's hand smoothed the dressing down, taping it snug and mindful, Dave asked, [I]“The plan is still the same though, yeah? We get new ID's and go to Canada and just... disappear?”[/I] [I]Oh, god, no. Please, no,[/I] Bransen thought helplessly, feeling a swell of panic burgeon within him, simmering under his skin and roiling testily to the concept. With round eyes, he regarded Dave for a moment, almost like he was unsure whether the suit truly expected a verbal acknowledgment to the question or not, and, briefly, he hesitated, mouth parted and breath bated. “Uh... yeah,” Bran forced himself to say, almost under his breath, nearly grimacing at his unconvincing timbre. He considered his subsequent words a bit more carefully this time, turning them over mindfully before allowing them to thoughtlessly spill forth from his lips. “Sure,” he tried again, sound terse as he gave a nod, lowering his eyes back to his hands, “Disappear... It's—It's the best option, right? Makes sense.” Ah, fuck, he didn't know—and the suit surely wouldn't either. It sort of struck Bransen then that they were both just a couple of fucking idiots running blinding for their miserable lives right now, weren't they? Just two pitiful rats lost in a maze, scrambling to reach the end as quickly as possible, because, lord, it was becoming dizzying and the stakes could never be higher. Bransen certainly had no experience with getting himself on the wrong side of the law and he was pretty confident neither he nor Dave had the faintest clue how to manage themselves with being proper [I]fugitives[/I], so, really, right now, all they had was each other. This wasn't an engineering problem, much to his dismay, nor was it a mathematical dilemma that merely required solving. It's not like there were step-by-step instructions with which to reference—a manual that might feed them all the answers, or some calculations to process that might bring about a sudden epiphany... No, this was real life and, the fact of the matter was, they were well and truly fucked. The last thing—The [I]very last thing[/I] Bransen wanted to do was to vanish from the world, forgetting who he was and everything he'd ever wanted to become, but... Honestly, what other choice did they have? Dave was talking idly about his cell phone then, chatting aimlessly and making Bransen think of the impossibly heavy weight in his pocket. Overwhelmingly, an uncontrollable amalgamation of anxiety and fear and regret rapidly began to mount in Bran's throat, knotting up like a fist and cutting the air from the engineer's lungs, nearly choking him of oxygen with guilt alone. Letting his grasp slip from the suit's newly bandaged arm, Bransen realized his own hands had started shaking just as Dave asked, [I]“Do you feel like that?”[/I] “Um, yeah,” Bran muttered absentmindedly, clearly no longer heeding much attention as betrayed in the scarce vacancy of his eyes. “Sorry, uh, excuse me, Dave,” he suddenly said, polite and mannerly, interrupting anything else the suit might have had to share, “I—I think I need to... rinse my face or something. I'm suddenly feeling a bit under weather.” Before waiting to hear a reply from Dave, Bransen pushed himself to his unsteady feet then, moving in his hindered amble towards the bathroom, and, after closing it shut behind himself, he pressed his forehead to the bathroom door and released a soundless sigh, wavering and unsettled. He leaning into the door with a weary posture, careful not to put his weight on his foot, and he rested his hands flush on either side of his head, letting his eyes slip closed while he focused on his muted breathing. [I]Pull yourself together,[/I] Bransen thought, [I]You've got a lot to come to terms with if you're still having this much trouble. It's not going to get any easier from here.[/I] --- The world glimmered back into sight like a long-forgotten memory, transient and dreamlike. First there were shadows, and then there were the colors. And, finally... discernible shapes started to appear—figures and forms. Kit could feel himself sprawled out on the ground, but his mind wasn't really focused on the uncomfortable position—half on his side, half on his chest, cheek pressed to the ground and legs pivoted at the hips in a discomforting kind of twist. Rather, his addled senses seemed to be acutely honed on the throbbing pain that stemmed from somewhere across the surface of his skull, beating like a goddamn drum in synch with the agonizing thrum of his pulse. [I]Thu-thump... Thu-thump... Thu-thump...[/I] With a weak groan, Kit rolled listlessly onto his backside and his glassy eyes were reluctant as they fluttered open, combating the double-vision valiantly until the lines and form and angles of the surrounding structure finally started to show signs of making sense. Everything managed to ease back into focus, slow and incremental, reminding Kit of where he was and what he'd been doing... He'd been on a job, he recollected, feeling himself perspiring in his abnormally hot clothes, dazed and confused. He was in a storage facility, too, that much he remembered. Had a partner at some point though, didn't he—? [I]Oh. Right...[/I] Kit remembered lunging after Berkman suddenly, rendered blind in his rage on account of the meeker man's inexcusable sense of defiance and self-righteousness. (Just who the fuck did that little shit-stain think he was, after all, talking to Kit and his partner like that? He'd hardly been in a position to cop attitude.) It was a very rare thing for Kit to lose his temper with such profound force, but, somehow, the sniveling snot managed to make it happen and Davian—the useless, miserable, [I]incompetent[/I] fuck he was—had done not a goddamn [I]thing[/I] to help regain control of the situation, instead, letting it spiral out of management. Like the corny climax of a halfwitted daytime soap opera, Kit found himself betrayed by his asinine excuse of a partner—knocked out like a bad cliché—and he very clearly could remember looking up once into Davian Tucker's eyes just moments prior to the blow being landed. There had been an undeniable fear in the suit's eyes, that was for sure, a fear gleaming from somewhere deep in his mind—somewhere Kit could almost taste—and that stirred a surge of irritation in Kit. Dave didn't know fear—couldn't even comprehend the [I]definition[/I] of fear. Not yet, anyway—not until Kit had his way with him. Kit would give that traitorous buffoon a [I]real[/I] reason to be scared, so help him God, whether it was the last thing Kit did in this life or not... What probably should have taken him only a few moments to recover from seemed to stretch on through the silence for days. (The result of a concussion, no doubt. It most certainly had [I]not[/I] been [I]days[/I].) Knowing without checking that it would be locked, Kit inexpressively gazed at the closed door of the storage unit, unmoving from where he lay, losing himself and his perception of time as the seconds crept into minutes, eased into hours. When the blessed sounds of a vehicle and voices and welcomed commands finally reached his ears, echoing from beneath the slim strip of light at the base of the door, drawing Kit's mind back from the boiling vat of inner hatred and anger and contempt, heaving him back to the present, the familiar heels of an always-immaculate Ms. Melissa Thompson came into sight, blinding him like the halo of an angel as the door rolled fully open, bathing him in sunlight. The trip back to Hawtholders was systematic and predictable and Kit managed to keep his charming mouth shut throughout the duration of the escorted drive, knowing he'd only be kicking the hive if he pressed Ms. Thompson for details on the current situation. It wasn't until they were safely locked inside one of the [I]holding[/I] rooms—a nicer word for [I]interrogation[/I], he was now realizing—that Kit was finally addressed by the woman, smooth and formal as she crossed her lovely legs. Kit coolly eyed her from across the table, regarding Ms. Thompson with a practiced air of ease, and, with a muffled sniff, he lowered his bloody handkerchief from where it had been pressed against his nostril, stifling a second spell of bleeding that had been triggered from Dave's blow to his face. He could feel the crusted blood inside his nose, stinging and uncomfortable, having dried and congealed while he was unconscious. Kit didn't appear hurried in his behavior and, to emphasize as much, he took a soothing drink from the proffered glass of water sitting beside him and Ms. Thompson's leather gloves on the otherwise empty table. Having satiated his thirst, Kit then wet his lips with a quick swipe of the tongue, setting the glass cup down quietly to ponder his following words: “Ms. Thompson,” he said civilly, leaning back in his chair and offering as nice a smile as he could muster, easygoing and composed. “I can understand how you may find me to be... a very convenient [I]target[/I] right now,” he started, mellow and mannerly, “Believe me, I am [I]very[/I] sorry that this... shady, off-the-books manhunt of yours has so quickly become derailed, but—” There was a beat—a brief pause where Kit, suddenly shifting gears, changed his mind and decided, instead, to lean forward eagerly, resting his elbows on the table, handkerchief crumpled in one hand. “But, with all due respect,” he continued, slow and deliberate, “it was that incapable [I]lunkhead[/I] that [I]your crew[/I] assigned me with—[I]your team[/I]—who has compromised this mission... Not myself.” Kit watched Melissa steadily, intensely, feeling hot and dizzy still, though knowing he couldn't afford to focus on such trivial discomforts right now. “You'll pardon my candor when I tell you that, no, [I]I[/I] didn't loose the target or the documents or my goddamn [I]boneheaded[/I] partner,” he exclaimed, well aware that a simple misstep—in this room, with this audience—might very well lead to his undoing. He gently tapped his index finger at the center of the metal tabletop, drawling out matter-of-factly: “[I]You did...[/I] Clearly, HILDA is defective in her programming—inadequate in her ability to calculate these types of quandaries. She was designed for this very sort of thing, was she not? If only your team had been more thorough, we may have been able to predict such a confounding level of [I]betrayal[/I] from Mr. Davian Tucker.” Kit let the words settle in the room for a moment, hoping for the best, because, honestly, how ticked he was, that was probably as good as it got for now. He was surprised he wasn't visibly trembling with fury. With any amount of luck, Ms. Thompson wouldn't order a prompt bullet through his head right then. (Though... that might help with the pounding headache.) “I think it's pretty clear to all parties involved that Mr. Tucker has become somewhat of a traitor to the cause,” Kit seethed, feeling the hand that balled his handkerchief tighten with an inescapable frustration. “He's gone rogue, Melissa,” Kit boldly addressed, finding himself almost desperate (which was probably a fucking first for him), “He attacked me... I lost control of the situation... but you [I]must[/I] know that I would [I]never[/I] consider deviating from the job.”