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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2025-06-27 02:45:05+00:00.
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Admittedly my reflexes weren’t all they could be. They weren’t nearly as good as they were when I was in my suit and I had hundreds of sensors and algorithms working to make me better, faster, stronger, but I was good enough to catch her before she hit the floor.
Not that there was much to worry about even if she did hit the floor considering everything in this room was designed to retract and get out of the way. That was the point of having a recovery room like this, but I was so worried at seeing her swoon that I sort of forgot all about the safeguards.
Including a temporary antigravity field that sprang to life if it looked like anyone was about to hurt herself by, say, taking a nasty fall.
Boy was I glad I’d overengineered every part of this lab with just about every sort of safety system I could invent. And that everything in the medical part of the lab was designed to work without CORVAC controlling it so I hadn’t had to kludge together something to get it working again.
Fialux stared at me, her eyes wide. She definitely looked surprised, though I wasn’t sure if that surprise was a result of her lack of powers, or that I was the one swooping in to save her.
“What happened to me?”
“I’m going to tell you, but you need to promise me you’re going to calm the fuck down. All this excitement isn’t good for your recovery.”
“Why should I calm the fuck down?” she asked, her voice filled with panic. “I’m in the middle of your lair and it looks like you’re doing your best to keep me captive while I don’t have any of my powers! Is that the sort of situation that’s supposed to make me calm?”
Fialux did a weird thing. She sort of lifted her shoulder up, then frowned. Her eyes narrowed. She looked down at the floor and then up to me. She did the shoulder thing again. Like she was trying to do some sort of bodyweight exercise.
I should know, because I’d tried a couple of those exercises myself over the years. Though I’d quickly discovered there was really nothing better for building up the old body than pumping some iron.
I was a disciple of Arnold even if he probably wouldn’t approve of my politics. Which mostly involved saving the world by taking it over as the sort of benevolent dictator he was usually trying to overthrow.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Usually this launches me into the air,” she said. “But it’s not working. I can’t fly. I can’t do anything!”
I took a deep breath. Sighed. It looked like she was trying to get away from me with her powers of flight even though she’d just spectacularly proved to herself those powers no longer worked, but it also looked like she wasn’t exactly trying to hurt me for the moment. I figured that was about as good as I could hope for.
“You lost your powers,” I said. “Remember? We were just talking about that? You just nearly faceplanted?”
She wouldn’t faceplant thanks to the antigrav, but she didn’t need to know that.
“I knew it! So you admit it!” she said, her eyes going wide. “What did you do to me? Why would you do this?”
I took another deep breath. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. I wondered how long it would take for her memories to come back. I desperately needed her memories to come back so I didn’t have to deal with this bullshit any longer.
It was giving me one hell of a headache.
I’d gotten this whole thing down to a science for myself. CORVAC had a series of videos queued up and ready to give me the Drew Barrymore treatment and show me exactly what had been going on in my life leading up to the memory loss. It was usually enough to jog my memory.
I could only hope telling her everything that had led to this moment would be enough to jog those memories even without the multimedia accompaniment CORVAC usually had ready for me. I was an idiot for not taking the whole amnesia thing more seriously when I loaded her into the medbay, but then again I had been a little preoccupied when I was tossing her into the thing.
And I was terrified it wouldn’t be enough even if I had thought to queue up a quick and dirty version of “This Is Your Life” for her. Damn it. Why did stupid Dr. Lana have to do this to us?
“Okay, so you lost your powers, but I promise it wasn’t me,” I said.
“Which is exactly what I’d expect from you, Night Terror!”
Her voice rose at the end, and I figured that meant she was gearing up for one hell of a haymaker. It was something I’d learned the hard way fighting her and trying to figure out exactly what it was that made her tick so I could figure out a way to stop her.
Back when I was still concerned with taking over the world by getting rid of Fialux. I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that now, of course. Though she didn’t know that, and what she didn’t know could hurt me.
The point was, she wasn’t very subtle with her fighting. She never had to learn how to be subtle with her fighting. Not when she could tank anything the world could throw at her.
Sure enough she brought her fist back. For a wonder I caught it before she could do too much damage.
Instead of being knocked back into a building like I usually did, even with all of my technology designed to compensate for a super hit, her fist stayed in place.
She looked at that fist in surprise. Then looked back to me. I smiled. She kept forgetting she was mortal now. Not that I could blame her. I imagined it was a hell of an adjustment.
“Let go of me. Undo whatever it is you did to me!” she said, only this time there was something different to her voice. There was something plaintive there. A scared child who didn’t know what was going on, and they wanted someone to chase the monsters away.
My heart went out to her in that moment. It really and truly did. It reminded me of some of the fear I’d felt when I ran into her for the first time, funnily enough. That sense that the world was being upended and everything had changed.
“Look. At some point you’re going to have to get used to the idea of not having your powers. I figure the sooner you get used to that idea, the sooner I can tell you what the hell is going on here and the sooner we can get on with trying to get your powers back.”
She looked genuinely surprised. Which made sense. After all, she was operating on the memories of Fialux from a couple of weeks back. For now.
I suppose I should be worried that the damage was extensive enough that her memory loss went back that far. Then again, every time I’d hopped into a medbay I’d had the luxury of getting into a fight where I was cushioned by all the safety systems that I so loved baking into my technology.
She’d been taking a beating and I hadn’t even realized it was happening. It was only natural that the confusion would be a little more pronounced. I just hoped whatever mental block she was suffering from right now wasn’t permanent.
Probably not. My medbay tech was damn good. It only took getting the shit kicked out of me a few times back at the beginning of my career to make me realize I wanted the very best medical I could build for myself.
“But… Why would you try to help me get my powers back? If I don’t have my powers then you can take over the world!”
I growled. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I needed to show her I was on her side. So far on her side there was no going back. That I’d never do anything to hurt her.
Plus I figured I needed to do a hell of a lot of memory jogging since the synapses in her brain seemed hellbent on staying inside the station and avoiding taking the train of thought out on the tracks for a spin.
So I leaned forward. Pressed my lips against hers. I had the pleasure of watching her eyes go wide in surprise.
A good sort of surprise, to be sure. I already knew how attracted she was to me this time around after all, but she was still surprised.
When I pulled away she was breathing heavily. She looked like she’d enjoyed the hell out of that kiss, though. I’m sure it was confusing as hell considering we hadn’t exactly been on making out terms where her memory cut off, but she’d liked that.
I couldn’t help but smile at that reaction. It was nice to know she was just as attracted to me when she was suffering from severe memory loss as she’d been when we were officially dating. I suppose it just went to show that love could be blind.
Even when you were suffering from temporary amnesia brought on by a piece of wonky technology. Not exactly the ending to The Notebook, but close enough.
“Did you like that kiss?” I asked.
“Why would you… I don’t…”
Right. So I’d short-circuited her mind. Again. Without the help of any medbay technology this time. Time to get her back on track though.
“Cut the bullshit. Did you like it? Yes or no?”
“Well… Yes?”
I grinned. Then I leaned in and kissed her again. This time she was just as surprised, but she also looked a little disappointed when I pulled back without extending the kiss.
“That’s exactly why I’m helping you,” I said. “Believe it or not, as crazy as it sounds, you’re the most important thing in my life. I want to see you well again. You’re also suffering from a bit of temporary amnesia, and I figure thi…
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