fic: some poems don't rhyme

Title: some poems don't rhyme
Author: dreamingwriter
Rating: T
Warnings: Some language.
Characters: Wendy, The Middleman, Ida, Lacey
Disclaimer: I could never take credit for creating this amazing show/comic. Everything belongs to Javi.
Summary: Wendy leaves before becoming a Middleman. (this is one possible fate)
A/N: Blame Story People and Brian Andreas, they get the credit for this plot and for one particular line. Plus I love Wendy and can't seem to forget her.



Wendy leaves the organization before becoming a Middleman, before becoming much of anything but a witty sarcastic hero. Her sudden depression isn't something she can explain to Lacey, who worries at the near constant shield her friend now carries.

(She wonders if her boss did something; knows that if he did there wouldn't be enough of him left for Wendy to be upset about.)

And one day she disappears.

(There is a period of time, lasting seconds and forever, that no one will forget. It is hollow and oppressive and the Middleman starts seeing shadows that aren't there.)

She becomes the most successful villain ever to oppose his line, with good reason. The Middleman can't bring himself to kill her, like he knows he should, and she frequently tells him that she cares too much.

(Normally she explains this after she ties him to something with technology he hasn't seen. She knows better than to try the same trick twice. The last thing he always sees of her is her back.)

Ida is often ordered to solve the problem, but there's not much more the O2STK can do than ask and it's really none of her business. And Wendy hasn't killed, maimed, or shown any inclination to be a dictator yet.

(Wendy has also told the Middleman that she hates him. That she can't stand it either way. That he's the glare from the sunlight on her brand fucking new television.

"I have to hate you," she says. "You know too much about me to be trusted."

And he nods and understands. At least she didn't use the ropes that cut harshly into his skin this time.)

(There is a period of time that stretches itself across years, but only exists in their seldom, quiet exchanges. Every time he hopes that she has decided to come back. Every time she regrets how they have turned out.

Once they both laugh at how ridiculously tragic they are.)

He trains a new apprentice. She lets some of her anger slip and slaps him, then uses the darkest of words to wound. The kid is practically ignored, though she ties him up next to their mentor and he is left wondering why the Middleman lets her get away with it and who this beautiful, terrible woman is.

Back at headquarters, the boss sits on the floor, back resting against the lockers, bruise blackening his cheek, ice pack on his head, looking straight at him, but thinking of something else.

It is clear to the kid that whoever that woman was, whatever she may have taken from the warehouse (he never did find out what they were protecting), she did more damage than she expected and took more than she was prepared to.

(The kid asks Ida, who blinks at him strangely and says, "They have a history." He searches for her in the library and assumes everything.)

Wendy saves them all one day in a no questions asked sort of deal. She clearly isn't happy and the Middleman looks miserable. The kid holds his breath with Ida. The things come back before any ground can be made.

They die together.

(The kid, the new Middleman, is so fucking confused. He doesn't know what made Wendy grab onto his boss a moment before the bomb blew and he won't ever understand why his boss gave her the truest smile he'd ever seen.

He's grateful though. Ida tells him if two life forces hadn't been taken in one moment, the bomb-thing would have known somehow and exploded, killing them all.

Ida suggests a little offhandedly that Wendy was a hero after all. The kid doesn't have it in him to argue.

(A new league of villains spends its first four years searching for items of great power. No one really knows that they're in plain display in a home just in the suburbs of Miami. The owner of the home will proudly tell anyone that her daughter brought them back as souvenirs from her trips around the world.)