Work Text:
“Ready for this?” Ekko asked Isha, tightening the straps on her helmet.
“Of course,” she signed, a look of determination on her face.
Still, he thought she had to be a little scared. This was her first independent hoverboard flight. But Isha had always been good at hiding her fear. She was like her mother in that way.
Ekko wasn’t so good at it. He couldn’t help the nervous feeling in his gut as she got onto her hoverboard. He and Jinx had both broken bones on their first flight, although that was partially because the boards weren’t complete back then. Still, he couldn’t help but worry. He’d never been the overly cautious type of parent; everything considered, he’d been pretty hands-off with Isha. And she’d survived on her own for years before she even met him and Jinx. She was a tough kid and smart too. She’d be fine. At least that's what he kept telling himself.
He got onto his own board, next to hers. She stretched out her hand, and he clasped it. It seemed so small. Before he could rethink this entire thing, Isha turned her board on, and he quickly did the same. As they moved upwards (a bit faster than Ekko would have liked), he let go of her hand. Here it was. Moment of truth. He thought briefly of how the birds roosting in their tree would push their chicks out of the nest to teach them to fly. He always wondered how they knew if they were ready. Now he realized that they didn’t.
Isha soared.
She moved faster than Ekko. Higher. He could hear her laughing as he turned the board up a few notches to keep up with her. She moved high above the firelight base, stopping to wave at Jinx, who was waving from the treehouse balcony.
“Fuck yeah!” Jinx screamed. “That’s my girl.”
Isha didn’t stop until they were high enough to see the entire base spread out before them. They hovered there for a moment. This never got old, moving through the air like a bird, unfettered by the city below.
“Want to take a tour?” Ekko asked Isha.
She grinned. They moved on, weaving beneath arches and above spires. The city of glass and metal spread out beneath them in all its twisted glory. The two of them were high enough that even the smog couldn’t reach them. The air was clean and thin.
It was twilight before they returned home. They had watched the sunset together, the glorious reds and violets tearing across an endless sea sky that they floated in effortlessly. You couldn’t get that view from anywhere else in the city. By the time they touched ground, even Ekko’s legs were sore. Isha must have been exhausted. She stumbled off her board, her wobbly legs not keeping her from throwing herself into Ekko’s arms. He almost fell but managed to return her rather sweaty hug.
“You did great, sweetheart,” he said.
Isha laughed.
“Thank you,” she signed.
Suddenly they were both accosted by Jinx, who wrapped them up in bone-crushing hugs of her own.
“I’m so proud,” she squealed. “Come on, Isha! You deserve some cake.”
Ekko watched the two of them run off. He was practically deliriously happy, but there was something about watching Isha fly that made him want to cry.
“They grow up fast, don’t they?”
He turned to see Scar, smiling sadly.
“Yeah,” he said. “They really do.”