Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gloria Martinez's eyes opened slowly as she felt the hand on the shoulder shake her awake, she rolled over yawning, "David, you know Mamà has work in… the…"

She trailed off as she realized her son wasn't using his weird trick to appear as the five year old he was, but his "real" self. A hulking mass of muscle that looked several times his age, "Mamà. He snitched."

Gloria's eyes snapped open, and she jerked up, "You're sure?"

"I was on the top floor, I saw them land," David said, not feeling the need to elaborate on his strange sleep schedule. He had never slept for more than two hours since Gloria had adopted him.

That Hijo de puta.  

Gloria rolled out of bed and rushed over to the cabinet where she kept the Colt-AMT Model 2000 and pulled it out alongside an IMI Chainknife. At the same time, David stood to his full height, or as close as he could without putting a hole in the roof, and width with the cracking of joints and practically threw the couch out of the way, grabbing the Animals sized machete that he had sworn he had thrown away in his hand. Despite being built for a gangoon roided out on bioaugs, the blade's guard barely fit around his pinky and ring finger, and the blade itself looked like a shiv in his hulking hand. After a second, he shook his head and shifted it so it was in a throwing grip, lifting the knife until in was in a throwing stance, winding up so his hand and head were even with each other.

With the other hand, he raised three fingers, lowered one, then another and finally the last as the door fell out of its frame with a soft "whomp". Less than halfway down, David threw the knife suddenly and without warning. It whipped across the space, through the gap, and hit through something with a loud crack and splat.

"What the fu-" in the time it took the goon 

 to say that, David had crossed the space between them, swooped down to punch a hole in the door, lifted it with one hand, and used it as an improvised shield to bash another goon into the wall as the first one went over the three story edge with a knife lodged in his face.

—

The operation had, at the outset, sounded easy. Sneak into Megabuilding H4, find someone that appeared to be either a lost company asset, or one from another company. Bioware up to his gills, some sort of super soldier project from Militech, probably.

The exact moment Jill Smith of Biotechnica special ops realized how wrong they were was when Valentine suddenly had a knife lodged in his face, was flying over the edge of the three story fall, and the ten foot tall "asset" came through the doorway ducked and sidesaddle to punch a hole through the door they had just, j ust breached less than two seconds before.

Oh, Jesus Chirst it was like someone took an Animal and pumped them full of pre-Collapse steroids on top of everything they already took.

The next second, Captain Carter was turned into a pancake of shattered bones, pulped organs and splattered blood. Brown eyes flashed as the asset swung the door sideways, decapitating another agent in the time it took to breath in and pull the trigger on her Ajax. Bullets flew, and the first volley smashed into him with a dull thud. The giant turned towards her, and in the next second was in her guard and lifting her by the neck. She couldn't breath, but she could feel her neck protesting the crushing grip on it. Spine, trachea, everything-

Crunch.

Jill Smith fell with wide eyes as she gasped for air she wasn't getting, the giant dropping her and whipping towards where James was lining up a shot with his Crusher, the door flying off his arm and slamming into James's gut, pinning him against the door and bisecting him at the waist. Two more members of the squad, Ramirez and Vasquez, raised their own Ajax only for the asset to suddenly be between them, gripping them by the head and-

SPLAT!

Smashing their heads together, caving them like melons. A woman stepped out of the apartment then, pointing the gun at Jill's face with a hard look on her face.

"No!" Jill tried to wheeze out, only to get nothing as her vision began to darken anyways. Jill had just enough time to see the woman pull the trigger.

Then, nothing.

—

Chapter Text

Maine pulled up to the house in the badlands as quickly as possible, throwing open the door and climbing out before opening the back door and pulling out the barely breathing Sasha. He knew Gloria was right, every Corpo and Police Officer in Night City would be looking for them if they stayed there, but that didn't make it any better to have to drive away from where he normally saw his Ripper when one of his crew was barely breathing after taking a thirty story fall.

Moving slowly so he didn't make the injuries worse, he came to the oversized door and went to kick it down, only for it to swing open and leave Maine staring at the barrel of what was clearly a homemade pistol with a bayonet attached to the bottom and oversized grip, trigger guard and trigger built into a sword-like device. Standing in the doorway was a man it was clearly meant for, looking like someone had taken an Animal and boosted them up to eleven. Easily eleven feet tall, and as broad as two of Maine, though his face was surprisingly soft and boyish, with a fade haircut and a cross necklace around his broad neck.

"Who are you," he asked, voice clearly lowered to keep from being booming, "what do you want? Who sent you? Who's the girl?"

"Gloria Martinez did," Maine growled out, not used to being incapable of using his size as an intimidating factor. He didn't have time for this. The man stared for a second longer before pulling back the gun and stepping aside.

"I'm gonna believe you for the girl, but if you're lying, so help me GOD ," his voice rose and lost the softness it had held to this point, becoming booming, "I will shoot, come on it, put the girl on the table, I'm gonna move your car so the Raffen don't know you're here."

Maine was tempted to ask what a Raffen was, but shoved it aside to hurry past the man and lay Sasha out on the oversized dinner table. Hearing the man walk out with surprisingly light footfall, he heard wheels turn as the man gave a loud grunt, and looked outside to see him one handedly push The car to the side of the house before throwing a tarp over it and returning inside. He fell on a couch that looked more like a chair to him, playing with a heavily modified, mostly to fit around his head, BD wreath.

"So, you two chooms of Mom?" The man asked casually, and Maine's brain took a second to shortcirc and reboot. He knew, from a few brief mentions over the years of going to her, that Gloria had a son. This man was implying he was that son…

"Mom?" Maine said, "Gloria Martinez?"

"Yeah," the man confirmed, "I'm her son, David Martinez."

What. The. Fuck.

"You're kidding," Maine deadpanned, "You're like, thirty?"

"Try sixteen," the man, boy, apparently, snorted. Before stopping and picking up the gun again, sliding up to the door and angling it, before a knock came, clearly practiced. He lowered the gun and swung the door open, "come on in, Mom. Doctor Vektor."

—

David stepped to the side as Doctor Vektor stepped in with a bag of medical supplies, "David, Kid, for the last time, I'm not a doctor, just call me Vik. How are you doing? Personal Link still working?"

"You're close enough to a doctor to me, Doctor Vik," David defended, "You two mind telling me what's going on? Why did a Cyberpunk and a nearly dead woman show up at my door instead of your clinic?"

"Shits gone down in the city," Vik said, placing the bag and nodding to the man, "Our client here broke into Biotechnica HQ, blared a top secret scandal over every channel she could and left some of her property, including her personal link cord, in the building. City Center's locked down, and Biotechnica Spec Ops, yeah I know," Vik cut himself off at the snort from David. He could beat them when he was five , "and the police, up to Max Tec, are prowling the city looking for her."

"So we figured it best to do the surgery here, and then have her lay low out here until the heat dies down," Mom finished, "You don't mind if she does that, right, David?"

David nodded reluctantly. No, he didn't particularly mind if someone stayed in the house while he was out, most of the time.

Then, in the distance, the familiar growl of engines. Fucking hell, were the Shiv watching the house?

David grabbed his homemade sentinal blade from its place next to the door and slung it across his shoulder, "You work on her, I have to have a conversation with the neighbors."

David stepped out of the building, walking towards the trio of motorcycles coming towards his house. The leader of the Raffen Shiv gang that he really should have cleared out before now stopped his bike, looking Davod over and fingering a sawn off Igla, "What do you want, chooms?"

"We saw our neighbor was having a bit of a party and wanted to see why we weren't invited," the leader said.

"Private affair," David snarked back, even as he slipped his index finger into the trigger guard and rested it on the trigger, "Sorry, now leave."

The Shiv licked his tongue across crooked, yellowed teeth, giving a fake grin, "Or what, you'll make us leave, big-"

David latched a hand around the Shiv's face, lifting him like he was a bunch of sand and not a full grown man, "You know, choom, you're acting really confident for someone trying to intimidate a guy who can crush you like a bug."

"S-so you're on the Juice and have a shitload of bioaugs," the Shiv said, voice suddenly shaking as if he was only realizing now what he was doing was a bad idea. Which, considering the fact he was probably huffing CHOOH2 fumes or some shit like a fucking gonk, he probably was, "Our whole gang is gonna come down here if we don't come back in half an hour- No, NO, WAIT-"

"That," David said to the other two, the headless body dropping to the dirt, "Was a warning. If your camp isn't gone by daybreak, I'm coming for you."

Come on, buy it. He didn't want to kill anymore than necessary.

"R- right, sorry to bother ya, Choom, have fun with your friends," the new leader stuttered.

—