Chapter Text
In retrospect, going to yet another lab scene was irresponsible on the part of the 118. They all knew it, though, the whole team hunched over themselves with their heads bowed like they were locked in their own bodies. It was a real throwback for Eddie, who took it in and went right back to helicopter rides above Afghanistan, everyone sensing the calm before the storm brewing in the air. He just sat ramrod straight against the engine wall, counting his breaths and silently bargaining to any deities who might take up his pleas. Mostly saints. His hands at his sides, he would occasionally brush Buck’s thigh or the side of his arm for comfort, a reminder that the two of them were still there in that moment. And the hitching of Buck’s breath confirmed for him that his best friend got the same comfort from that too.
“All right, everyone. I want to see us moving in and out efficiently and safely. No nutty professors in this engine today.” Chimney accentuated the joke by smacking his gum, but it still fell flat. “Ravi and Harry, you two stay back. We might need some hands behind.” The two youngest nodded grimly. No one needed an explanation as to why this might be. Chimney might as well have said get Athena on stand-by.
The team marched into Lyndon Technologies as a united front, almost like a funeral procession. Having heard no report of any gases or contagions leaking, the 118 was dressed in their regular turnouts with only precautionary masks for additional protection. Eddie was annoyed by this for two reasons: 1) it definitely wouldn’t be enough for a real emergency, and 2) he didn’t like how hard Buck was to read like this.
The last few months had been hard, but good. Eddie came home under the worst of circumstances to reunite with some of the best people in his life. And for the first time ever, he felt no real need to fight. His job was secure, his son was home, and his best friend was living under his roof, where he could keep an eye on his emotional needs. It was better for both of them; the presence of Eddie and Chris was slowly bringing back the sunny nature of Evan Buckley, while Eddie finally got his whole family together in one place. Looking over at the strong, resilient man in front of him, Eddie jutted out his shoulder for a quick nudge. “I think you might get to use the ram on this one,” he nodded to the door in front of them, which Chimney was currently knocking on while calling out for any trapped souls, “unless you’d rather Ravi have a chance-”
Buck snapped into action and grabbed the giant metal hazard. “Not a chance.” He looked to Chimney for confirmation, received a quick nod, and immediately thrust the ram into the door. After three hits, it fell onto the floor with a loud bang.
“Nicely done, Buckley.” Chimney stepped over the door and surveyed the room, frowning. “This is where the call came from.”
It was a large circular lab with work tables spaced out along the edges of the floors and reflective glass panes running along the walls - one way mirrors most likely. Despite there only being one exit, it was empty, the ghostly silence making the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck raise in alarm. The only sign of anything abnormal was a giant structure in the middle of the room, a black entryway of sorts with a pulsing purple center, a violet membrane flowing in a wave-like manner.
Buck moved forward, walking along the perimeter of the room like a hound dog in search of a scent. He kept calling out “118!” and pausing to listen against the wall, shaking his head each time there was a failure to respond. On a regular call, they might’ve had a laugh about Buck calling out to invisible people, but this was not one of those days. Eddie saddled up next to Hen, who leaned on the doorframe, and watched as Buck worked.
He eyed the center abnormality in front of them a bit warily. “What exactly do you think that thing is?” It gave him an itch in his brain he didn’t like, similar to when the rest of the team would crow about curses or ghosts.
Hen hummed and snapped a picture of it. “I can’t say, but maybe my wife has some idea.” She grinned. “Any guesses, Chim?”
“Hmmm… time portal. Definitely.” Chim looked up at the structure admiringly. “Not going to lie, I’m kind of tempted to stick my head in and get back some of my youthful glow.”
“Better hope that glow doesn’t include a stick of rebar through your skull.” Chim clucked at Hen, who held her sides as she cackled. “Hey, Buck! What do you think this thing is?”
Buck tilted his head and perked up. “Guys, I think I hear something.” Everyone else listened, hearing only the slight echo of their breathing. “It kinda sounds like voices.” He inched a bit closer to the center of the room.
Chim sighed. “This is getting ridiculous.” He tapped the side of his headset. “Maddie, what exactly did the callers say was wrong?” Eddie could tell by his tone that his normally aloof captain and friend was wary. The three of them waited for a response, watching as Buck scrutinized the tile floor around them, stepping closer and closer to the center of the room.
Maddie typed away on the other side of the headset, the clicking sounds reverbrating out around the lab. “The call came in ten minutes ago from the central testing room at Lyndon Technologies. They said-” She paused, sounding almost unsure of whether she was reading the information correctly. “They said their gate was eating people?”
Eddie’s head snapped up, immediately making eye contact with Buck, who now stood a mere foot from the suspicious gate at the center of the room. “BUCK! Move back!”
“Guys, I can hear them speaking!” Buck apparently had not heard Maddie’s call, waving to the others who now motioned frantically for him to fall back. “I think there’s someone in this thing. I… uh oh.” His turnout gear ballooned out from his torso, pulling him closer and closer to the entryway. “GUYS!”
“BUCK!” Three voices chorused at once, the others running to the edges of the wall to try and pull their friend back from the abyss. Eddie rounded the corners like he was back in his baseball days, getting just behind his best friend and reaching out a hand to grab him when-
The suction pulled Buck in. He soared through the air like a ragdoll as the violet energy swallowed him whole. Eddie felt his heart stop, the blood rushing to his brain and ringing ears. Less than a second later, a large body flew back out the other side and landed just shy of the door. Eddie saw the familiar bright yellow BUCKLEY letters on the ground and sprinted over like his life depended on it, Chim and Hen right behind him.
“Talk to me Buck, are you okay?” Eddie ran his hands over his partner’s chest, feeling a jolt of relief alongside the telltale rise and fall of lungs. Hen worked beside him, digging under Buck’s sleeve to get a pulse while Chimney pulled on the mask. Just as Hen confirmed the heartbeat was steady, Chim yanked the mask off. A cascade of long golden curls fell out onto the ground.
“What the- Buck?!” Eddie forgot how to breathe for a second, his mouth gaping open like a fish. The body below them moaned and rolled over.
The face reminded him of those puzzles where you look for slight differences between two pictures. The eyes and nose were right, the birthmark on the left eye was exact and yet Eddie knew instantly that this was not his partner. The features were slightly more pointed, the face not as wide, and the moan that came out of it was way too high-pitched to ever belong to Evan Buckley.
The woman blinked and squinted. “Eddie? Why do you look like that?” She turned her head and examined the group slowly. “Hank? Chim?” She addressed the other two paramedics, both of whom had a look on their faces somewhere between fear and apprehension. “How hard did I hit my head?” And finally, after one more glance around the room, she asked a question no one had expected and yet everyone dreaded: “Where’s Bobbi?”
Hen was the first to break out of her stupor, still on her knees and gently taking this strange version of Buck’s head in her hands. “Okay B-, okay. Can you tell me today’s date?” She turned on a small flashlight and checked the larger woman’s pupils, the light shining in them bringing out that familiar Buckley blue.
“April 16th.”
“Good. And your full name?”
“Eva Buckley. Buck.” Eva seemed a lot more comfortable answering these questions, and if she was anything like their Buck, they probably were routine for her. “Can we get to my questions now?”
“I don’t know if we have any good answers to them. You passed the concussion test, but aside from that I’m stumped. My best explanation is that you Everything, Everywhere, All at Once’d yourself.” Chimney seemed kind of hesitant to touch Girl Buck, as Eddie had dubbed her in his head. “But hopefully without all the death and stuff.”
“Okay, but Bobbi, Roberta Nash, where is she or he or whatever version of Bobbi you would have?”
When Eddie tried to speak, it came out hoarse, his very breath fighting against the instinct to repress, to hold down the sorrow in the small section of his heart he’d carved out for it. “Bobby’s gone here. We lost him in a lab leak.” He’d had to remind his own Buck of that a few times, after hopeful dreams and panic inducing nightmares.
Girl Buck blinked a few times, the light shining a little brighter in her eyes. “Oh, okay. Good thing this isn’t real for me.” She paused. “You know, assuming I’m not stranded here forever.”
“You’d better not be.” The sharp edge in his voice cut through her thought process like a steak knife, the mere idea of his Buck not reappearing making him see red.
Girl Buck chuckled. “God, you are something, aren’t you? So close to my Eddie… cute too.” She watched the way Eddie shuddered, winking at him when his face took on a sickly, pale pallor. “Don’t worry, Diaz. I’m a married woman.”
And God didn’t that make his head spin?
She lifted her hands in the air, having Hen and Chim pull her to her full height. Upon standing, Eddie could see that this Buck was a few inches shorter than his own, and curvier too. Girl Buck began undoing her turnout, throwing it on the ground to breathe and stretch. When she did so, Eddie could see the slight bulge of her breasts under her LAFD shirt, the way her abdomen cinched inward before coming back out at the hips. The motion made her curls bounce, falling back down to frame her face and shoulders in a soft golden glow. Something he probably should have felt an attraction to, but instead made him nauseous.
“Okay, that is a beautiful woman,” Chimney said from somewhere behind Eddie, making him break from his Buck-watching reverie.
“Where’s the lie? And I know it’s Buck.” Hen shared Chimney’s awe, eyes going wide as Girl Buck clasped the bottom of her LAFD shirt and pulled it off in a slow, dramatic fashion. Yanking it off revealed an innocuous black sports bra and a stomach covered in splotches of very familiar tattoos. She was definitely putting on a show, tossing back her long golden ringlets and lifting her head toward the artificial light of the lab. Eddie’s eyes flitted to the woman’s left hand, where a simple black silicon ring lay on her fourth finger.
Eddie was going to be sick.
“What are we even doing here? How are we going to get our Buck back from whatever hell dimension that thing sent him to?”
“Well, in the movies-”
“Shut up, Chim.” Hen tapped at her phone. “Karen says she knew some of the people working on this ‘multiworld gateway.’ I guess it’s been fluctuating between operational and junk for the past few days.”
“So?”
Hen rolled her eyes. “So, we wait for the thing to start working again, whenever that will be.”
“And in the meantime?”
Girl Buck, once again in a shirt, came bouncing up to the group. “Good news, guys, no internal bleeding!”
“Well, I guess we do our jobs for now.”