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tinfoil-jones · 6 years

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Motorcity: Legacy, Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity, or the song. Motorcity belongs to Disney, and the song belongs to Five Finger Death Punch Title: Burners Legacy Rating: T-M depending on chapter Summary: He didn’t want to be his carbon copy, but he might have to be in order to rescue him from Deluxe. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie, ClairexFoxy, DukexBabs, Juliex?, OCxOC Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence, death or dystopian societies Author’s Note: Some characters you like died.

~~~

Chapter 3: Never Enough

\In the end we’re all just chalk lines on the concrete Drawn only to be washed away For the time that I’ve been given I am what I am\

“My bike!” Miles exclaimed as she surveyed the damage from this mornings patrol - the energy blasts from the hound bots did it fact hit her a few times, and now most of the paint had been seared off and the metal making up the body was damaged. Being a motorbike, Prowler just couldn’t tank hits like the other vehicles could.

Dana, the lead mechanic stood by her with her gloved hands on her hips, surveying the damage. Dana didn’t look much like her father, Dutch, she instead looked more like her mother Tennie; the most obvious thing being that she was the shortest Burner. Her skin was a cocoa brown color and her eyes were a deeper shade, almost black. Her black hair was set it short boxbraids and parted at the center that didn’t quite brush her shoulders. She wore a violet shirt with a sky blue burners symbol in the center of the chest, and blue denim shorts, and sky blue high-tops, under her clothes she always wore black capri leggings and a black skin tight elbow sleeved shirt. The most notable thing, however, were her violet electricians gloves that were far too big for her hands, which were actually quite slender and small. How she had mobility of her hands and fingers with those on, Miles could only guess, but it was probably a Cablers thing.

“It’s not too bad girl,” Dana assured her “I’ll have it fixed up by tomorrow more, just leave it with me overnight.”

“No problem.” Miles said, although she didn’t really mean it; she didn’t want to hoof it home, unlike the other Burners she didn’t mainly live at Jacobs place. And it was really best that she wasn’t seen along the way.

“Are you going to stay over this time" Asked Kam as he was laying under his vehicle, Leviathan, fixing something in the undercarriage; probably his transmission again, which always leaked no matter what they did.

“I have to go home, I’ll just take the bus.” Miles replied, leaning over the counter of her work station.

The shorter Burner motioned to her car, Stinger “You don’t need to, I’ll just drop you off-” Dana began, but Miles quickly cut her off.

“That’s nice of you but it’s fine.” She insisted, and Dana didn’t push it. Miles wasn’t upfront about her life outside the Burners, and the other Burners (for the most part) respected her privacy.

“Oh come on Miles, it’s been a year, would it really hurt to have us know where you live?” Kam, exception to pretty much everything, inquired as he slid out from under Leviathan; Miles had neat, dark red hair, and dark brown eyes with fair skin and a prominent jawline. His clothing as a Burner was a color-swap of his Deluxe clothing; he wore a dark green letterman-style jacket with light green sleeves and a dark green Burners logo on his right arm, olive cargo pants and brown trainers. Mile’s might’ve found him cute if he wasn’t so... himself, and if she wasn’t already engaged. “I mean, I’m beginning to think you don’t trust us.” Miles simply sneered at him and grabbed a sanding block and a blowtorch to smooth out the charred and serrated metal parts of Prowlers body.

Dana put her hands on her hips again and bent over Kam, who was still on the ground “Mind your own business, Kam, everyone has a right to their secrets.” This seemed to convince the red-head, oddly enough, and he got up again, cleaned the transmission fluid off of his hands with one of the many small grease cloths they had scattered around the garage.

Sighing in relief, Miles put on a pair of heat resistant gloves and a face shield to start working out torching off some of the dings and dents in her bike; she was just glad her bike was easy to work on compared to the behemoths her friends drove. Dana and Kam were taking a break from maintaining their cars and were watching TV in the kitchen area that was offset from the garage.

Kam changed the channels when he came to Duke of Detroit television, Dana stopped him from flipping again “Wait! I like this show.”

“Oh come on it’s just a rerun.” He complained, grabbing a room temperature cola from the other side of the counter.

“Well I haven’t seen it yet.” Dana told him and watched intently. The show was a five-minute segment on DD-TV called ‘Crimes against Fashion’, hosted by the Duke’s daughter the Duchess of Detroit. Duchess had the same tall, lanky build as her father the Duke, but her face was more like her late mother No.2. The most prominent trait she had was her hair; it was in two differently coloured layers just like the Duke, except the top layer was bright red instead of brown, and her hair was much longer and smoother. She had a large singular fringe covering her left eye, and a plat on the other side framing the right side of her face. She had the same sea-blue eyes as the Duke, and wore candy-red eyeshadow on the visible eye. The older teen, who had to be almost twenty by now, always wore a white sleeveless v-neck, red tights with a white stripe down the side of both legs, and white heeled boots with red stripes down the sides.

In the segment Duchess was sitting in an extravagant chair, with a sly Duke-like grin, and was talking about the outfits worn by various people caught in shots around Motorcity. And surprisingly, after the two minute mark a snapshot of Mitch came up, where he was sitting on the stoop of an apartment complex and was playing his stratocaster.

“And then there’s this guy!” Duchess said to the camera and audience “The leader of the new Burners himself. I don’t know if it’s a phase he’s going through but he wears too much black! We get it Chilton you’re an edgelord, it doesn’t mean you wear black all the way up to your chin!” Dana couldn’t help but stifle a laugh, Kam rose an eyebrow.

“Geeeze, she’s so hot it’s a shame she has to be such a bitch.” Kam said in regards to Duchess, Dana nudged him.

“Oh be nice Kam, she has a point you know; Mitch doesn’t exactly dress to impress.”

“Should he? And even if he doesn’t it isn’t nice to blast someone on television either when he was just minding his own business.”

“To be fair, I think it was the Duke’s orders, you know he doesn’t exactly like the Burners. Especially Mitch’s dad.”

“Doesn’t make it okay.” Kam muttered, taking a sip of cola “If you ask me, Duchess is just as bad as the Duke. Daddies girl or not, she’s just as much of an overdramatic brat as him.”

Dana nudged him again “Come on, that’s not fair; her mom died in Hellfire Rain, all she has is her dad.”

“And a ton of money, a ton of territory and a bunch of servants - she’s not the only one who lost a parent; Miles and Teddy lost their mom too. Hell, I don’t even have a dad and you don’t see me blasting people on television.”

They heard a yelp of pain and turned to see Miles was standing up and hopping about. “Are you okay?” Dana called from the kitchen.

“A cinder block fell on my foot!” She hissed painfully, and Dana began making her way over.

“Let’s go see Teddy.”

“I’m fine!”

“Come on, don’t try to be tough those cinder blocks weigh more than you do. I mean, it’s not hard to but-”

“Fiiine.”

—

“Your foot is fine, a little bruised but I don’t think you’ll get any sort of infection.” Teddy told her after looking Miles over.

“Thanks doc,” She sighed, Dana was seated at a different chair next to the doctors chair, and was reading an old magazine “What’s with the face mask?” She asked; Teddy had a surgical mask on since before they came in and hadn’t taken it off.

“There’s a flu going around - haven’t you wondered where Mitch is?” He asked with a quirked brow - his communicator, a usb-stick like device at the end of his layard started going off, a call from his mother, and like always he pressed decline.

“I figured he was brooding.”

“No, he, Texas, and Little T are all down with the flu - in fact, let me check you over.” Teddy went into his medical ramble and grabbed a thermometer and pulse oximeter.

“I feel fine- Teddy, really?” There was really no use getting through to the medic, as he already put the pulse ox on her finger . Sometimes he was really such a hypochondriac by proxy.

He got out his thermometer and put a probe cover on the stick “Open,” he ordered, and she listened, as it took a few seconds to take temperature he turned to Dana “I’m checking you right after.”

“Fine.” The mechanic deadpanned and turned the page of the magazine.

The thermometer beeped and he looked at the screen of it “You have a 103 degree fever.” She groaned a little bit, knowing Teddy was probably going to blow it way out of proportion “That’s a high grade fever Miles.”

“I’m- I’m okay.” She stopped herself from saying ‘fine’ for what must have been the millionth time that day. Teddy didn’t really listen to this and instead focused his attention on Dana, he took her vitals as well and she had a 102 degree fever.

“Everyone’s getting sick; that’s it, work day over, everyone’s going home.” Teddy sighed, adjusting the surgical mask and switching it for a a filter mask instead.

“But I live here,” Dana pointed out, Teddy gave her a stern look.

“I’ll take you back to your parents home at the Cablers settlement,” Teddy said, grabbing the keys to Sunback “I can’t nurse a flu for more than three people at a time. I’m going to check Kam quickly-.”

“I’m going home.” Miles announced and got up abruptly. “I’ll take my bike it works just fine just looks ugly.”

“Miles I’d highly advise-”

“I said I’m fine.” She said with more emphasis, irked at this pointed, and the medic didn’t push it this time. The brunet hobbled over to her bike, pulled her face mask up to her nose, and drove off.

“She really needs to start wearing a helmet,” Teddy said to Dana, and she nodded in agreement; really, at this point it was amazing the Prowler driver hadn’t cracked her head open.

—

The Cabler settlement was Dana’s actual home ever though she primarily stayed at the Burners headquarters. Her parents lived there, and as did her older brothers Cekis and Carlos.

“Get better, and have a nice day.”

“Thanks Teddy.” She smiled weakly as Sunback turned around, unlatching Stringer from the towline, and watched the vehicle as it drove off and disappeared from Cabler territory and her sight. Sighing heavily, Dana trudged her way to her childhood home.

She loved her family, she really did, but… she had her reasons for not coming home very often.

The short Burner knocked on the rounded door, and waited as she heard the electronic locks click, and finally the door opened. A much, much taller figure stepped out. “Baby girl!” Dutch exclaimed as he knelt down and swooped his daughter into an all-encompassing hug so tight she had some difficulty breathing. Being the patriarch of not just the Gordy family but also the Cablers themselves, Dutch wore electrician-style Cabler gear these days with a blue star on his shirt where his Burners symbol used to be. He still kept his hair up in a large afro, and also had a beard, but both of these had a few gray strands.

“H-Hey dad,” she coughed and smiled weakly, and she was dragged into the house. The cable house looked the same as it did every time she came back home, furniture arranged the same, picture frames where they’d always been. R.O.T.H, her fathers constant companion even to this day was charging on the kitchen counter.

“Tennie!” Dutch called his wife; he finally put his much smaller daughter down and had his arm wrapped around her instead.

“Dad I’m sick-” Dana protested and tried to pry out of his affectionate grasp, but this did little to deter him; her mother fast-walked from the hallway. Tennie Gordy was the Cablers leader and despite her unimposing stature looked the part; her hair was a lot longer and not kept in pigtails anymore, and instead flowed down to her back, but she had a blue bandana wrapped around her head to keep it all out of her face, and if it was off one would see that one of her ears was bright red and shriveled compared to the other one. A reminder of Hellfire Rain.

“Dana honey! It’s so good to see you!” Tennie said as she walked over and covered the teens face in kisses.

“Yuck, yuck- mommmmm.” Dana protested “Dooon’t, I’m sick.”

“You’re sick?” Her mother asked, concerned, Dana nodded and explained to them what Teddy had explained to her “Well, that’s no problem, we haven’t touched your room. Go lie down for a bit sweetie, I’ll bring you some food and medicine in a bit.”

Dana nodded obediently and Dutch escorted her to her room “Are… the twins home?” She asked, referring to her older brothers.

“No, they’re working on a centre right now.” Her father explained as he opened her door; her bedroom seemed to be a juxtopisional space, it looked lived-in but it felt lifeless. It had a hammock bed with a storage boxes under it, a dresser, a small desk and a few stuffed toys scattered her and there, along with clothes in the closet that she didn’t wear anymore but kept because it wasn’t like she’d grown any taller since she was twelve.

She lay down on the hammock and looked as her father put a fleece blanket on top of her. “Just shout if you need anything,” he said and kissed her forehead.

“I’m too old for that, dad.” She reminded him, getting flustered at this point; he only laughed softly and left. Dana curled up into a ball under the blanket once she was left alone; and now that she was left alone to herself and her thoughts with the lights off she realized that her head and face did in fact feel really hot. Had she been this tired the whole time?

She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

—

Muttering to herself as she parked her bike in a lot, Miles went into a pharmacy - not more than ten minutes since her diagnosis and she was already feeling the full brunt of the fever. It was almost like the knowledge she was sick made her ever sicker. Weird how that worked. If she was going to make it back home, she’s have to have some kind of pick-me-up. Maybe she should have taken the bus.

She went inside and looked around for some cough medicine, but they were sold out as usual; living in a subterranean city, they were always low on stuff like medicine, especially cold pills which people frequently turned into crystal meth. Ever since Kya’s son Fallow of the Terra’s opened up a weed shop hard drug usage wasn’t as bad as it was say, ten years ago, but it was still there.

Giving up her search for cough syrup, and picking up some ibuprofen, she came back out with a brown paper bag in hand. However, a few steps out of the door and she was hit with a wave of vertigo; she almost dropped the paper bag as she reached her hands up to hold her head, and cast her spinning vision to the ground.

She was vaguely aware of someone hooking their arm with hers and escorting her to her bike, but she was too dizzy to really do anything other than be dragged. “Thanks…” She muttered as she gripped the handles of her bike.

“No problem.” A robot voice said, almost humorously. She froze and turned back around to see it was Red. On impulse she reached for her communicator.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Red warned and red energy sparked around his fists, reluctantly the brunet listened “good. Not that they’d help you, everyone but your medic is sick too.”

“What do you want?” Miles asked, irked. She’d be confused even if she wasn’t sick; why would Red help her to her bike instead of just attacking her when she was weak?

“I wasn’t ordered to attack a bunch of Burner babies.” Red told her, snatching the baggy from her “I was told to observe. And I have to say, I’m not impressed.” He looked into the bag and reached his hand inside of it.

“Give me that!” Miles snapped and snatched the bag back “I don’t know what angle you’re playing at, but leave me alone.”

“Whatever you say,” Red began, bringing his face in a little closer, so he could mockingly whisper “princess.”

Miles already pale face drained of colour “W-What-”

“Don’t think I don’t know your little secret,” The armoured man said, and turned away “frankly, I’m surprised your little friends haven’t caught on by now.”

And then he was gone, and Miles was dizzy, feverish, panicked and confused all at once.

—

“Here sweetheart.” was a statement coupled with a gentle shake that woke Dana up from her uncomfortable fever sleep, but being awake again was twice as uncomfortable, she opened her eyes a crack to see her mother standing by her hammock; she’d brought a small one-person fold out table and had on it a steaming bowl of soup and glass of orange juice.

“Thanks mom…” Dana said quietly, grabbing the orange juice; she wasn’t sure how long she’d been out but apparently it was long enough to dehydrate to near death. Tennie smiled down maternally at her daughter.

“It’s so nice to have you home again! Of course I’d prefer if you were well - but still nice nonetheless. Your brothers are home by the way.” Dana coughed as she swallowed the wrong way. “They’re not going to bother you, but they’re home if you want to see them.” Dana’s older brothers, Carlos and Cekis were older than her by four years, they were twenty-one, and identical in every way. They didn’t live at home because they were jobless or bums or anything like that, but because like their parents they were influential figures among the Cablers.

They were the golden children, and she’d always played second fiddle to them as long as she could remember.

They were both prodigies and grew to be much-needed pillars of the Cabler community; carpentry, hardware repair, and electrician were a must-have in the Cabler settlement and the twins were skilled in all. Now, Dana was a skilled electrician also; but she was better with vehicle technical skills, which aren’t as important in the Cabler community as it was to the rest of Motorcity. Not to mention she hated doing general repairs and was poor with carpentry.

The twins were artists also, just like their father, something that inspired the rest of their community. She didn’t have that same spark. She was good at other things; she knew basic first aid, she was good at fighting, good at cooking, but…

She wasn’t good enough at anything that was important to the Cablers, or her parents, she didn’t live at home anymore because that meant living in her brothers’ shadows. Kameron had been her childhood friend, like the other Burners, and he was the first of the original Burners children who got his license. Dana always tagged along with him driving, and when Jacob and Texas proposed restarting the Burners she jumped on that bandwagon right away. She wasn’t anything special in the Cabler community, but among the Burners she actually meant something. She could fix cars better than the others, she could make them look new just with a discerning eye.

As a Burner, the Stinger driver was important. As a cabler, Dana Gordy was just nobody.

“Do you need anything else dear?”

“No thank you, mom.”

—

The Dukes territory was a formidable place to trespass even if it was a junkyard; the guard dogs, the henchmen on patrol, all of the cameras. It was like there were eyes everywhere.

At least, that’s what you would think if you didn’t understand the territory like Miles did.

There was a narrow blindspot; this was a run where a lot of the guard dogs congregated, but they never barked at her because they knew her. Still, the area was narrow; but it was narrow enough for a speeding Motorbike like Prowler to slip through undetected.

Miles came close to the Duke’s mansion, and when she was close enough she stopped her bike at an overpass of junk; it was easy to hide her motorbike with the abundance of junk, and usually a pane of sheet metal did the job as she leaned it against a mound of junk. It was actually this area that she’d found Prowler; back then it had just been an ancient, rusted, delivery Motorbike but she’d fixed it enough to make it at least work.

And then one fateful day, over a year ago she’d come across Mitch. Moonstrucks radiator took a shit because Mitch neglected to change the water. But Mitch had only just got his license so it was a forgivable mistake since it was a common mistake for new drivers especially if they had an old car. She helped him fix his radiator, jumped his battery and opted to be his spotter on the way back to Jacobs garage. Here she met the rest of the gang, and became the last of the new Burners to join. They helped her fix up Prowler to its current sleek, destructive glory.

Keeping herself as small as possible, Miles went through another narrow blind spot; there was a large, mostly dead, monstrosity of a mutated tree next to the mansion, which blocked the security cameras view for a small range, but enough range for Miles to squeeze through; once by the mansion she opened the window; she had jerry rigged it to make it looked locked from the inside when it wasn’t. Once inside, she sighed in relief.

The room was mostly red, with some white accents; it was an overall plush, velvety room; it had its own large master bathroom , and walk-in closet with full-length mirrors on the doors. The bed was king sized and had a soft, bright red duvet, and an abundance of plush white pillows. There was a large TV in one corner with a red leather couch and glass coffee table in front of it. Finally, there was a large dresser with a number of accessories on it, including a large jewelry box almost overflowing with it’s tasteful content, there was a mirror attached to the dresser also, and a small velvety vanity stool. On top of the jewelry box, there was a small Titanium ring, made a shimmering green via anodizing, which she resented too much to ever wear.

Placing the paper baggy down, the Burner sat on the stool and looked into the dressers mirror. Her reflection stared back; a fair-skinned girl, with fever-flushed cheeks, tied up brown hair, and brown eyes bespectacled with geeky round glasses. Her face.

Sighing heavily as she usually did at this part of the day, Mile’s took her leather jacket off first and hid under her dresser. She undid her ponytail, and her brown hair fell to the middle of her back. She looked at herself in the mirror again as she took off her glasses; her eyes went from boring brown to a brilliant sea blue. Finally, she took her red hair clip out, and her bangs fell to the left side; the brown color of her hair shifted as the pixelated disguise faded out; her hair became softer, fuller and two-toned, with the top layer becoming bright red and the bottom layer blonde.

She looked into the mirror again and this time the Duchess of Detroit was staring back at her.

—

“Dude, autoscope.” Mitch complained into his headset to his online companion, who was probably some smug seven-year-old judging by their online gaming shenanigans. The brunet Burner was sitting at a couch with a blanket over his lap and a wet cloth on his forehead that stopped being cool fifteen minutes ago but he was too lazy to remove. His baby sister was curled up under the same blanket, and was sleeping with her head resting on his thigh. Fever had sapped her usual abundance of energy, and Texas was the same as Mitch hadn’t heard a peep from the older Burner all day. Mitch, however, had a hard time sleeping fever off, and decided to instead spend the day playing video games.

“I didn’t think I’d see a day where everyone was greener under than gills than me.” An old, rusty voice croaked; Mitch put on a weak smile when he craned his head to the doorway to see Jacob. The old man was not in good shape these days; most people in Motorcity didn’t live past seventy because of respiratory issues, and Jacob was still kicking. Probably because of his diet being heavy in vegetables. Among other age-related issues, his worst ailments were rheumatoid arthritis, and lung cancer.

The only reason he wasn’t heavy on treatments was because he didn’t have a very aggressive form of lung cancer, he reasoned that old age would kill him first. Depressing thought, but he fought for the free thought of everyone, he had the right to have a say in how he’d die. He consumed a lot of cannabis edibles these days.

“It’s just a bug, they pass.” Mitch said, and the old man hobbled over. Little T hummed and gripped the blanket, burrowing deeper into the fluffy cocoon.

“I’m impressed, neither of you two are as insufferable as your father when he got sick.”

“Which one?”

“Mike,” Jacob said “he was just- just, awful when he was sick, especially when he was around your age. ‘But I have to do this’, ‘but I have to do that’, ‘but it’ll only take an hour to blast all of those hound bots’.” Jacob impersonated, which made Mitch snort a small laugh “We had to use a whole bottle of cough syrup to put him to sleep to keep him from doing anything. Your other father had a heck of a time dealing with that.”

Now that Mitch thought about it, anytime Mike was sick he was basically in a coma for the whole day. He used to think that was just how sick people recuperate, but in retrospect Chuck probably drugged him with a bunch of cough syrup or something, because it /was/ weird that Mike would be inactive for such a long stretch of time. Much like Little T, he had to always be moving, and couldn’t sit still for long. Mitch was restless too, but not because he felt the need to constantly be doing something, but because he just naturally functioned on small amounts of sleep. Chuck would always tell him it was hereditary, but he may have just been trying to excuse his own bad habits.

“By the way,” Mitch inquired as Jacob sat at the other side of the couch and grabbed a controller as well “was Kam sick too?”

“No,” Jacob told him and toggled on the two-player “Teddy sent him back to Deluxe for safety though, illness is so rare in Deluxe it’d be really strange if he suddenly came down with the flu.”

“So everybody but Kam and Teddy is down?”

“Mhmmm.”

“Well, I hope it doesn’t last too long; if Red reported this Kane would jump at the chance to attack us.” Jacob hummed thoughtfully at Mitch’s observation.

“I don’t know…” Jacob began “Red’s changed… he just, doesn’t seem very destructive. I don’t think he takes the Burners seriously anymore.”

“That’s fine with me,” Mitch shrugged “if he doesn’t think we’re a threat, that’s a benefit to us. Kane will underestimate us. And dad always told me there wasn’t a bigger blunder than underestimating a foe.”

—

“Oh princess! Are you home?” The knocking at her door almost made Duchess jump out of her skin, but it was just her father. She was glad that being a girl, the Duke never just barged in, she was especially thankful that he’d shown up right after she’d gotten into her pajamas.

“I’m here dad.” She said, sliding under her covers to make it look like she’d been there the whole time - just in time for Duke to throw her door open.

“What are you still doing in bed sleepy head! It’s three in the afternoon!” He bellowed, but jovially. He walked over, she looked up at her father and smiled weakly.

“I’m sick.” She told him, sitting up slightly. And he frowned, making the age lines in his face much more apparent; the brown layer of his hair, and his once well trimmed but now scruffy beard was streaked in gray while the blonde layer was streaked with white and he just seemed to add more and more colourless streaks each day. Even though he was older than a lot of people realized, he’d managed to retain a youthful appearance; that was, until her mother died.

“Oh sweetheart why didn’t you say so! I’d have gotten one of our servants-”

“It’s just a flu dad.” Duchess insisted.

“Still, only the best for my little girl. This isn’t from that fiance of yours is it?”

“Dad you know as well as I do that I’m never around him unless if I have to be.” She reminded him, and she looked up at him with narrowed eyes as she did. It was an arranged marriage, arranged by him when she was only eleven.

The Duke kissed her forehead, which might have been for affectionate purposes but was definitely mostly to check her temperature. “Darling you’re absolutely burning,” he concluded “no more Crimes against Fashion for you this week.”

“Okay,” Duchess said with a sigh, sinking back into her mountain of plush pillows.

“Don’t worry about business this week,” The Duke continued “you just focus on getting better princess.” She just nodded and turned onto her side with her back facing him. He turned out her lights and then left, and when he did she flopped back onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

Duchess felt like more of an asset of her father than an actual daughter sometimes. Okay, pretty much all the time she felt this way. And everyone else saw her as just an extension of the Duke as well, instead of as an individual person. When she was younger she loved it; everyone wanted her attention, wanted to be her friend. As she got older, she realized they just wanted a piece of the Duke’s money and power, and saw her as a meal ticket. Or people just assumed she was a spoiled heiress without a thought in her head, like Kam did.

Over time, she realized that in order to be herself she had to stop being… herself. She used some of her father’s connections to get pixelating technology; a hair clip that made her hair appear brown, and rounded glasses that changed not only the color of her eyes, but also made her eyes appear rounded instead of the natural almond shape.

Once she had those, all she needed was a ride, different clothes and a name. She’d scavenged her bike from the dump, she bought more casual, palette-swapped versions of her regular clothes and a leather jacket. The name Miles was typically a male name, but it had special meaning to her; when she was little she had the childish habit of talking a lot, and talking fast, to the point her mother frequently told her she ‘talked a mile a minute’.

When she was Miles, she wasn’t the Duchess of Detroit, she was just a nerdy biker chick. She’d gone to the same high school as Mitch, Dana, and Dana’s brothers and none of them knew that she was really Duchess. When she’d ‘met’ Mitch that fateful day at the side of the road, he saw her as a stranger.

And she was not just fine with that, she /relished/ in it.

As Miles she could ride Prowler instead of a limo with someone else driving. She could be taken seriously, she could get in as many fight club brawls as she wanted, she could be seen as a person and not just an extension of Duke. She could be a Burner.

She loved her father, she really did, but he coddled her, and almost kept her hidden from the world; she wasn’t allowed to have many friends as a kid, anytime she went anywhere she had to have an entourage of bodyguards with her, she was rarely allowed to even drive the limo unless if she was racing because ‘that’s what the help do’, she had to always wear red-and-white, she wasn’t even allowed to date because he arranged her a marriage for power and affluence.

His over-protectiveness and coddling wasn’t always so bad, but it got worse after her mother died, though not immediately. He pushed her away at first out of grief, for about a year, but then suddenly he was all over being her father again and she was smothered to near death after a year of being neglected.

Duchess pulled the blanket up over her face; sometimes she wished she could wake up and be Miles forever. Well, okay she didn’t really wish that. She was at a constant impasse with her identities because she loved being Duchess too, just not all the time.

First, she needed to sleep. She reached over to grab the bottle of ibuprofen from the paper bag, but it fell from her nightstand when she grabbed it wrong. When she looked to her floor, her blue eyes widened in shock.

There was a bottle of ibuprofen, but also a new bottle of cough syrup.

/I’d rather hate you for everything you are Than ever love you for something you are not I’d rather you hate me for everything I am Than have you love me for something that I can’t

It’s never enough, it’s never enough No matter what I say It’s never enough, no it’s never enough No matter who I try to be It’s never enough, no it’s never enough No matter how I try to change It’s never enough, never never enough I’ll never be what you want me to be/

Authors Note: Cars introduced are; Leviathan = squid motif, green. Stinger = wasp motif, purple. Mile’s lives a double life. Parallels can be drawn between Dana, who just wants to be noticed, and Miles who just wants to not be noticed so she can be herself, but both of them just want people to appreciate them for who they are. Also, who’s Miles engaged to? And why would Red go out of his way to intimidate Miles, just to also turn around and give her the cough syrup she needed? The song is ‘Never Enough’ by Five Finger Death Punch.

#motorcity #au #legacy #texas #duke of detroit #cablers #dana gordy #mitchell chilton

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