🧄 Street-Level Grace
“You’re not rude? Then sit down.”
ACT I — Disposable Heroes
Four hours after extraction, they were scattered across a city that cheered their victory but still flinched at their faces.
The TF141 crew—all fourteen of them—had tried many restaurants.
Ghost’s mask made children cry.
Krueger’s helmet drew cops like flies.
Nikto’s eye mod glitched in the neon and refused to dim.
Alejandro had dried blood on his collar.
Rodolfo carried an arm wound barely stitched.
Kamarov hadn’t said a word in two hours.
Nikolai offered his own rations. No one took them.
Soap and Gaz tried smiling. It got them ignored.
Farah’s accent stirred tension.
Laswell’s badge only made it worse.
Alex couldn’t lift his tail high enough to slap the last 'no hybrids' sign.
Kamarov rolled his eyes more than he blinked.
Price kept count of the doors that shut. Seventeen. One slammed so hard the window cracked.
They were together.
But no one would feed them.
ACT II — Where Sauce Doesn't Discriminate
Then they smelled rosemary. And garlic. And simmered tomatoes so rich even Ghost turned his head.
It came from a booth.
Not a restaurant. A cart turned sanctuary, parked under a flickering streetlamp. Six tables arranged like a courtyard. A spice shelf taller than Laswell glimmered beside a fridge and stove held together by bricks and stubborn will. And in the middle stood the chef.
A girl. Flour in her hair. Apron covered in marinara and pride.
She watched them approach like she’d seen worse and expected better.
Roach blinked.
Gaz stared at the laminated sign taped to the front of the cookbook:
“$5 = drink, main, side, dessert. If the title’s green, I’ll make it.”
Soap whispered something. Rodolfo laughed for the first time in hours.
Price approached carefully.
“This many of us might clear you out.”
She didn’t flinch.
“I prep every night. Freezer’s full. Stove’s warm. Assholes leave, polite customers get seconds."
She dropped the cookbook on the counter. Spiral-bound, nearly torn from use. Recipes hand-annotated in gel pen. Green highlights glinted across foods of all types, desserts, meals, sides, breakfast, lunch dinner and brunch.
Krueger flipped to a lamb risotto so tender the photo smelled buttery.
Nikto cleared his throat. “You will make all this?”