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"I want first shift." Not exactly a lie, but he seemed worse off. Noel could deal and she would let him rest for as long as it took, circadian rhythms and fairness be damned. She also told him to eat the last sandwich.

"You are, like, five times as swol as me and there's still eggs." Which she was sure she couldn't stomach at the moment anyway. There was plenty of food in the world, she'd eat later.

Once he seemed settled, Noel sat on their little stretch of floor and fiddled with her phone to set an alarm. The screen light made her head hurt, but she was interested and hadn't yet had time to explore what was on her hand held. It looked pretty standard: a calendar with notes that stopped almost a week back, maps, photos with friends and her dog, and music. One playlist was named "songs that mean something" and it seemed promising for later.

The Ranger snuffled in his restful state. Noel closed her eyes to listen to the train and the sounds around them. She thought forwards and backwards and poked at anything that seemed out of place. She hadn't wanted to sleep until she was absolutely sure no memories could be saved. It was looking like that was true. She would love to dig in the Ranger's head too, just to be sure. If he'd allow it.

What she had now was a handful of strangers that felt like family, and 5 years of New York city living: a time that included getting let go from her previous government employment.

She hadn’t told them that.

The dossier they had on her painted a picture like Noel had been on their payroll the entire time. Like she’d been living a second shadow life parallel to the memories she actually remembered. Did she trust them? Did she trust the paper? Did she trust her memory?

She ended up taking the pain pills he left her. She fiddled with the vodka bottle, but left it unopened. She dug around in her bag to familiarize herself with what was in there.

It was blessedly boring and the floor was just uncomfortable enough to keep her awake through it. Nothing to it.

The outside light waned from what little she could see around the drawn shade, and Noel let the cabin dip into darkness.

Once he moved from knife to towel, Noel figured it was safe to take out the ear plugs.

The tracker might have been gone, but she didn't quite feel the relief she was expecting. Instead, she got a firm butt smack.

> "Good game."

She cringed as the shockwave went up her back, but supposed that was only fitting. She had started it by proxy kissing his ass, and it wasn't gay if you said good game. Besides, she’d gotten to deck him and pants him and Ranger had neither option.

"I’m gonna let that slide because I don’t like beating up cripples while blindfolded. Tends to be a real ego hit on both sides. Maybe next time, though. Have any idea what you want to do with these?" She moved slowly, leaving her blindfold on for now as she dug out the little bead of Michael's tracker from her pocket and offered it out in front of her in the palm of her hand.

No doubt, he probably wanted to do exactly what Noel wanted to do: curl up on the bunk and doze off. They could put it off, but it negated the point to carry them around.

O-kay. Not the face. With Ranger on his front and the whole expanse of his back there was plenty else to work with. Maybe not lower back and probably not where she wanted to cut. Noel moved to kneel around the Ranger's legs and wondered how they got into such ridiculousness.

The bottle had hit hard, she'd gotten the first smack, afterall. She knew just how hard that hurt. If that'd been her face, she'd have a black eye by now. His face seemed fine, but her shoulder was still smarting. So she needed to hit about that hard, she guessed. She wasn't sure how fast she needed to cut him afterward so she tried to have everything in its place and ready.

"I'm sorry in advance."

The angle isn't great when punching down unless you really get your entire body weight into it. Noel circled her arm and dropped her weight to put some oomph behind a hammer fist in the meat of the Ranger's back. His ribs should protect him if his mysterious power did not, she doubted it was enough to break one. But it was a solid smack.

And she scrabbled immediately for the knife, trying to go fast but still precise. Noel put her finger down hard to keep the tracker from rolling around and cut. His skin sliced this time and all Noel had to do was guide the little bead out through the hole she'd made. Almost like popping a really big pimple. A slurry of blood followed and Noel traded knife for towel. The bead, she dropped into her pocket for the time being.

"Hanging in there?" She'd thought the leather strap a bit silly at first. A good, sharp knife and you hardly feel a thing. It was a little different than she'd imagined, but it worked in the end.

Noel made quick work of the antiseptic and the bandage. As an afterthought she kissed her hand and gave his backside a pat before she helped guide whatever clothes he wanted back into place.

It was definitely less funny now.

She owed him dinner. That was for sure.

"You first. Deeeefinitely you first." She pat him on the elbow and motioned to the towel he'd set up for her. Why was this so funny? She wasn't entirely sure, but it was. It totally, definitely was. Noel picked up the knife and twisted it until the overhead light glinted. "Let me just get that pain out of your-"

Someone jiggled the door and Noel dashed to catch it before it became too terribly open. She stuffed her face in the open inch to block the view and salvage Ranger's virtue, knife at the ready just out of view. But it was just a wrong room. The guy's arms were full of breakfast burritos and packages and iced coffees and he just hadn't been able to see properly with all that crap. No harm. No foul. Noel locked the door this time and whuffed out a sigh of relief. Not an Enron lie in sight.

"Now... where were we."

Noel spun the knife expertly and turned to see where the Ranger had gone to. Oh wait. Disinfectant.

Noel snorted softly at the flex and made her way over. She'd been feeling hesitant to touch him knowing on paper what she'd read, but shenanigans put her back at ease and back in the moment. He hadn't read it… yet. For now, this was just Michael Blackforest Ninja Tomahawking Hunter, ballroom dancing badass. Noel was okay with that guy.

"Why ear plugs?" The blindfold she could understand, she would submit to that if she had to, but what did he think she did with her ears, exactly?

She started at his neck, combing carefully through his neck hair line and stopping for moles. Noel knew all the tricks. She didn't touch lightly, she wasn't in it to tickle him and she wanted to be thorough-- stretching skin and walking her fingers over the texture of his skin inch by inch. There wasn't a lot of places to hide on this broad back. 

The lower she got, the dryer her mouth.

"Maybe you don't have one…?" She would honestly rather go under the knife now. Noel felt along his belt line, but it wasn't there, either.

"Off." She tugged at a belt loop. Yeah.  It looked like they were doing this.

He checked thoroughly, running his hands across her skin and breathing in the wake of his own touch. It wasn't that he was trying to make her aware of him. It was just the nature of exposing so much skin and having it scrutinized so closely.

And the goosebumps were from the cold. It was chilly closer to the windows and there wasn't a whole lot space at all in the cabin. That was exactly why she got goosebumps. Definitely the windows.

> ”How d’ y’ manage? Keep y’rself...You?”

That was an incredibly philosophical question. How did anyone manage to stay themselves? If everyone was a sum of their experiences, what did that make Noel?

"Notes? Stubbornness? My computer is full of journal logs. You should probably read them at some point." As embarrassing as that would be, he was mentioned in a lot of them. It would probably help him. They really were partners, though there'd been a distinct lack of talk about SUPER or their supposed mission. Was it just that secret?

Noel braced herself against the bunk as he began to check lower. Why hadn't he found anything yet? She was sure it would have been near the spine. What would it mean if there was nothing?

> ”I think I found it.”

And Noel's mouth had gone dry in the meantime. The more senses that were engaged in a memory, the easier it was to remember. And Noel certainly remembered how she'd gotten that one. She'd hallucinated and suffered flu-like symptoms for more than a week after getting... stung. She couldn't remember if she managed to tag that mutant, but she certainly remembered what they looked like in her hallucinations. Black carapace and a too-wide smile.

"Can you get it out?" She was not looking forward to it, nor was she looking forward to returning the favor for the Ranger. "We really need to stop performing minor surgery on each other."