The first time he meets a Freelancer, it's in the pouring rain.

David is standing knee-deep in the mud of the battlefield, swaying on his feet, blood and rainwater streaming through gashes in his bodysuit. The Freelancers look strange and garish against that bleak backdrop, one in teal armor, the other in improbably spotless white. The woman in teal's been talking to him, telling him about reassignment and promotions and experimental programs. Telling him he's been selected, her own proud anticipation seeping into the word. Telling him that this is a rare honor.

He stares up at her, way up—she's still solid in her footing while he's mired in the muck. He tries to remember how to loosen his grip on the stock of his rifle, how to clear his throat and speak instead of barking orders. Field promotion. Rest of his unit's command center wiped out. Not so much leading as desperately holding position. Four days, maybe five, no relief in sight, and then the Freelancers come charging in, sending the Covies packing.

It took the two of them less than an hour to do it.

"You have conducted yourself with exceptional valor," the Freelancer repeats, a little more uncertain in the face of his blank stare. "Your commanders have recommended you for special training."

He's having trouble focusing on her beyond the rain seeping through a gash in his helmet's faceplate. The smell of the rain on this planet isn't quite right, sickeningly salty and harsh against his tongue. "Thank you," he says, because it's what she wants to hear, because sheer dogged inertia isn't a virtue, isn't any kind of heroism. "I'm just, ah. I'm just a little tired."

Her body language changes, and he's oddly cheered when her boot skids in the mud as she moves closer. But then he's stumbling, putting a knee to the ground, finally letting go of his rifle in his attempt to steady himself.

Her silent companion gets to him first.

The guy's huge, got 'team heavy' written all over him. David has a confused memory of watching him take out a half-dozen Elites with his fists alone. His hands are gentle now, hooking David's elbow, holding him steady while he gets his feet back under him.

"So." David's pleased at the strength of his own voice, considering the rainwater dribbling down his forehead, dripping from his nose. Considering the blood. "You the cavalry or something?"

The guy thinks about it for a while, then rumbles, "Always."

Training's rough. Especially since the name 'Washington' just doesn't stick in his head, and he spends the first week staring blankly whenever the Director calls out orders. He's never been much good at codenames, at any of that spy stuff. Never had the subtlety for it.

He meets the twins, North and South Dakota. Takes on South in hand-to-hand on his first day in the training arena and gets his left wrist broken for his troubles. They come to see him in Medical, North hovering with a nervous grin, South slamming herself casually into the chair beside him.

"Dragged you in for observation, huh?"

David—no, Washington—shrugs. "Protocol. Just a busted wrist, but it's my first time here, so they need—" He waves his good hand vaguely. "—tests and things."

She stares at the immobilized limb with an open fascination that he finds only marginally less annoying than North's fidgeting. "You left-handed?"

"Uh," he says. "Yeah."

"Ooh," she says. "Sorry, kid. That's gonna make... certain things difficult, for a while."

"South," North says quellingly

"Don't worry," Wash says, deadpan. "For that, I'm ambidextrous."

South stares at him for a long moment, then bursts out laughing. Behind her, North presses the palm of his hand to his face, but Wash is pretty sure he's hiding a smile "You gotta watch your guard, dumbass," she says, once she's recovered her composure. "Nevada got his hand ripped right off in battle trying a half-assed judo throw like you did."

He blinks. "Really?"

"Let's not play another round of 'scare the rookie', huh, South?" North offers Wash a smile that's equal parts good humor and apology. He's sincere, Wash realizes, and suddenly he isn't quite as annoyed by North's hovering.

South smirks at him. "Nah, I like this one. Let's keep him around."

"Oh my god South he's not a pet that followed you home," North mutters, all in one breath.

"Seriously," she says, kicking her feet up beside his on the cot. "You should come see me sometime once the Director's done trying to break you with his pseudo-training bullshit." (Another warning "South" from her brother.) "I can help you out with the hand-to-hand stuff. You're kind of terrible at it."

Wash shrugs, scratching at his arm. "They didn't bring me on for my hand-to-hand skills."

"I know the feeling," North says. "But trust me, the Director values well-rounded agents. If you want to get on that leaderboard, you should probably brush up on your CQC."

Wash is starting to feel like the conversation's getting away from him. He wonders whether the painkillers might be kicking in. "Why should I care about the leaderboard?"

South and North exchange glances, and for a second he can see the family resemblance in the worry-lines that crease their brows. Then South shrugs. "I figure a storm's coming. Might be the leaderboard lets the Director know who gets the first lifeboats."

"Might be nothing," North says, as though they're picking up some longstanding argument where they left off.

"Might not be."

A nurse comes in then to check his vitals, and on that ambiguous note the twins leave his bedside. Wash slumps back against the thin sheets and tries to ignore the glare of the fluorescent lights, at least enough to drop into a fitful doze.

A hand on his shoulder pulls him out of sleep, and he kicks and thrashes for a moment, disoriented. Then he recognizes the gold helmet and white armor, the team heavy. Hasn't seen the guy since his rescue out in the ass-end of nowhere. Agent Maine, his brain spits out belatedly.

The Director of Project Freelancer is standing at Maine's side, hands behind his back, lips pulled into a tight, thin line. "I have an assignment for you, Agent Washington."

Wash stares at him, trying to focus his sleep-blurred vision. There's an IV in the crook of his elbow, feeding him painkillers that make his stomach churn and smear his thoughts out against the hazy backdrop of his mind. "Sir?"

"Agent Maine was wounded in battle one week ago. We have need of somebody with your talents for mid-range marksmanship to test his performance."

Wash blinks, rubbing at his eyes with his right hand. His left wrist twinges. "I, uh. I have a broken wrist. Sir."

"Yes," says the Director. "You do."

Wash stares at him, waiting for the punchline, then looks over to Maine, who stands at impassive, silent attention. "Um," Wash says.

The Director leans forward, and Wash shrinks back in his cot. "There is an order to things, Agent Washington. The system determines the training regimen. I cannot delay because of your careless injury. I believe you were informed of the high demands this Project will place on you."

Wash looks at Maine and remembers the rain, and the blood. Remembers what he owes the Project. Remembers what South said about breaking. "Yeah," he says, roughly. "Yes, sir. Just give me a minute to get suited up, here."

An hour later, he's standing back in the training ring.

The scowling doctor pumped him full of an extra dose of painkillers and a mild stimulant before he left, gave him strict instructions to stick to single-shot, to avoid the added recoil of burstfire. Cursed the Director under her breath. Wash nodded and kept quiet and swallowed down nausea.

Now he's swaying on his feet, staring down a hulking behemoth in white and gold and trying very hard not to remember the sound of snapping bones.

"Agent Washington's vitals are less than optimal," a voice says, and it takes Wash a moment to place it as the facility's AI.

"Understood, FILSS," the Director says. He's standing in the observation room, and Wash winces when he realizes the twins are up there beside him, watching curiously. The woman in teal—Agent Carolina, top of the leaderboard—is at his right side, arms crossed, and someone Wash doesn't know, wearing gold armor, is leaning against the wall behind her in a would-be casual pose.

They look very much like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise. Wash shifts his gaze to Maine, hesitantly opens their armor's text-based comm frequencies. Were you really hurt?

Maine jolts a little, as though surprised at the intrusion. He hesitates, visibly stalling as he loads the lockdown paint rounds into his shotgun, and then replies, No.

This isn't training for you. This is a test for me, after that less-than-impressive fight with South this morning.

Yes.

Wash clenches his hands into fists, feels the burn as bone grinds against bone in his left wrist. The Director's a bit of a dick, huh?

Maine doesn't hesitate this time, signals a brief smile with his hand. Yes.

"Begin," the Director says.

Wash's rifle is still clipped onto his back, but the room is shifting, columns rising from the floor, so he has just enough time to fling himself into cover and pull it free. Just holding the damn weapon hurts, and he sucks in a breath, trying to find a comfortable grip and still keep track of Maine, who hasn't fired off a single shot yet.

His heart is pounding too fast, too loud in his ears. He steals a glimpse around cover in time to see a flash of white, fires a single, experimental shot that he's nearly certain will miss.

The paint splatters against a column, a few flecks marring the white of Maine's armor, but Wash barely has time to notice before the pain of the rifle's kick really registers, sharp agony streaking like an arrow through his damaged bones. He chokes on a scream, jerks back into cover, tries to keep a grip on the gun with his spasming hand.

His pain-dulled senses are slow to report movement in his peripheral vision, and Wash turns sluggishly just in time to take a shotgun blast directly to the chest.

The paint hardens instantly, triggering a lockdown that manifests as a tingling jolt up and down his extremities. With his armor locked solid, he tips over, almost comically, and the jarring landing sends another wave of pain through his arm.

Wordlessly, Maine leans over him and applies the solvent to the paint. It finally releases its hold on his armor around the same time as Wash manages to catch his breath.

"Round one goes to Agent Maine," FILSS says. "Please reposition."

Maine jogs back to the starting position, doesn't offer him a hand up. That's a clue, Wash thinks muzzily. He's expected to prove something, here.

Wash staggers back to his feet just as FILSS says, "Round two: begin."

This time, he switches the rifle to his right hand as he spins into cover, fires off a couple clumsy one-handed shots as suppression while he gets his bearings. He figures the distance between the columns is a little longer on one axis than the other. Files that thought away for future reference.

Maine is moving, taking exactly the same route as before. Wash sucks in a breath, dodges back into cover, then steadies the rifle with his bad hand to pull off a single shot. It misses, embarrassingly wide of the mark. This time Maine shoots him point-blank in the face.

Wash fades out for a second, then jolts awake flat on his back with the paint already dissolved from his helmet's faceplate. FILSS is saying, "Alert! Medical assistance to the training room floor!"

"Belay that," the Director says, sounding irritated. "He's awake."

Wash rolls onto his side, coughing, and then drags himself to his feet. Maine is back in position. "Round three," FILSS says, but Wash is already moving.

He throws himself behind a piece of cover on the diagonal, switching the axes of the firefight, and fumbles with his rifle, activating burstfire and clamping his shaking left hand around the grip, easing his finger over the trigger. By the time he's got it done, Maine is already halfway to him.

Maine hasn't noticed the extra distance between the columns on this approach.

Wash catches him in the split-second before he reaches cover, sends a burst of three paint pellets at him. The third one hits Maine's left hand, pinning it to the wall behind him.

The burstfire recoil sends a sickening snap through Wash's left wrist, and he doubles over, gasping into his suit's rebreather, his HUD lighting up with helpful warnings about hyperventilation. He can hear the snarl in Maine's voice, and then a crackling, crumbling noise. He looks up in time to see Maine dragging his arm free of the lockdown paint and raising his shotgun.

Everything fades out again, for longer this time.

When he wakes up, there's somebody unfamiliar beside his bed, wearing gold armor but no helmet. He's also eating jello.

Wash stares at him, finally places him as the mysterious figure who'd been standing behind Carolina in the observation room. A mysterious figure... currently eating jello. His brain keeps coming back to that fact, and it takes him a while to dig far enough past the haze to realize that it must be his jello the mysterious figure's eating.

"Hey," Wash mumbles. "My jello."

The guy blinks, then breaks into a beaming grin. "Hah. Medics said you had a sweet tooth. Figured this might be enough to perk you up."

Wash squints at him. "I don't think the theft of a patient's dessert is a recognized medical practice."

"Hey, man, whatever gets results. I'm York, by the way. Infiltration guy. Don't think we've met." York—third on the leaderboard, Wash remembers—sticks the spoon in his mouth and holds out the half-empty cup. "Want the rest?"

Wash sighs. "All yours."

York grins and digs back in. "Nice showing out on the training floor, by the way. You're quick and you're a good shot. I didn't realize you were out there with a broken wrist, too. I mean, the Director had to have known you were hurt. Why the hell'd he set you up against Maine, anyway?"

Wash shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable with the talkative agent and his too-wide smile. "My guess is, he was planning on kicking me out after the match against South this morning. Needed a reason to keep me around."

York thinks about that, spoon halfway to his mouth, then shrugs. "You must've given him a reason. You're on the main roster, now. Once you're mostly recovered—which, by the way, is gonna be more like three weeks now with all the new and exciting ways you messed up your arm—you'll be running missions with the rest of us. So how'd you pull that off?"

"I guess he picked me in the first place because I didn't give up when I should have," Wash says. Whatever painkiller's currently flowing through his veins is also loosening his tongue. "He wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Once I realized that, all I needed to do was keep going until I either won or passed out."

York winces. "Man, that does not sound like a healthy attitude. You're a little messed up, aren't you?"

"I was told it was a job requirement."

"Hah," York says. "You thinking new motivational posters in the mess? 'You don't have to be suicidally brave to work here, but it helps?'"

"Something like that."

They lapse into a thoughtful silence, and then York's eyes go wide. "Uh," he says. "I think you've got another visitor."

Wash glances over to the door. White armor, gold helmet. He's surprised at the surge of fond familiarity that rushes through him at the sight. "Hey, Maine."

Maine grunts and turns to look at York, who flushes. "Uh," he says again. "Yeah, I'm gonna just, I'm gonna just leave. Quietly. No trouble here." He fumbles with the jello cup, then awkwardly jams the spoon into his mouth and raises both hands, backing cautiously out of the room.

Wash watches him go with a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. "What the hell was that?"

Maine shrugs. "Beat him up once."

"On or off the training room floor?"

Maine thinks about it. "Both. Put him through a wall."

Wash snorts, then drags the rest of his tray of food closer, picking sadly at the congealed mass of something that may once have aspired to be rice. Maine watches him for a moment, then reaches out and drops a fresh cup of jello onto his tray. "Whoa," Wash says. "Where'd you get that?"

Maine shrugs.

"Well, y'know. Thanks."

"Sorry," Maine says, after a moment. "I had orders."

"I know," Wash says. "It's okay. I owe the Director, too."

Maine's shoulders roll once, signaling discomfort, and Wash looks down, focusing on peeling back the lid of the jello one-handed. "Hey," he says. "South told me earlier there's a storm coming. You ever get that feeling, too?"

Maine gives a long, slow sigh. "Always."