A/N: Added a few paragraphs to the last section. Still needs further revision for quality purposes. Notes appear at the end. Comments appreciated.

Warning: mention of yaoi (aka male homosexual relationship). Feel free to back out if that's not your thing. No one will be flamed for hitting the back button, promise. Also spoilers for the end of the F-Zero anime.

Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. This work of fanfiction is NOT endorsed by the original creators and is NOT in any way meant to insult the original work. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of shit.

The Finish Line

Between veterans and diehards of the track, there's a saying.

Physics doesn't care about your angst.

And that's the simplest truth about life on the racing circuit.

If you learn one thing here, it'll be this. Your soul belongs to the machine you ride, and the machine follows no laws except the laws of physics. Cold equations don't warm over for anybody. Here, the line between victory and defeat could narrow down to the blink of an eye, and the line between life and death becomes that slip on a right-angle turn on the last lap of Whiteland II. When you're taking that jump over the abyss, slightly misaligned, draining all your power for one last push, that's when the part of you that knows better starts asking: How badly do you want this?

If you hesitate before the answer, then you don't belong here.

Because one misstep on this tightrope, and you fly.

The rules are simple. Go! means go. Don't blink and drive. And remember, you have boost power.

That's all you need to know.

Welcome to F-Zero.

x x x

It was mostly older men at the bar that night, like any other night. You'd have to be old to come here, anyway.

Once in a while, I had to break my rule against socializing with the guys from work. You could only turn down so many invitations without looking like some kind of social misfit. I couldn't afford even that little bit of attention, so I had to give in to peer pressure once in a while. Just my luck one of those times had to fall on the worst night possible.

"It's the Big Blue Grand Prix! Come on, you don't want to watch this all alone at home!"

Damn right, I thought. I don't want to watch it at all.

But with a tight smile, I nodded at the enthusiastic faces of my coworkers. "Sure, I'll come."

As soon as we stepped into the place, I started throwing back as many drinks as it took to numb my ego and lock my pride into a steadfast coma. That made it easier to watch the images projected onto the wall. Place wasn't so cheap as it looked on the outside. They were only a step behind the times, and all their screens showed everything in high-resolution visuals and surround sound. So sharp and real, my alcohol-soaked brain started giving me the occasional flashback every other minute.

Breathing took some effort. Cigarette smoke hugged the air. Management kept the lights dim to increase the visibility of the screens. The guys around me sat leaned forward in their chairs. Whenever a camera caught a spin attack or two drivers battling for rank, they jumped halfway to the ceiling.

"Did you see that?!"

I stayed in my seat and tried not to look directly at the big screen. I couldn't really feel the bottle in between my fingers.

Everyday, I worked with these guys. Everyday, I stayed quiet about a lot of things that I knew, tried to play it cool, tried to act like I knew what I was talking about without looking like I knew too much.

The shop's engineer had taken the seat next to me. He was drawing a schematic on a napkin in front of us.

"Just somethin' I've been playin' around with. An idea. Whatdya think?"

I glanced over it for moment. Hard to see in the dim light.

Another chorus of cheers ripped through the room.

Without lifting my head, my eyes went up and followed the flashing impressions on the wall. There was a delay as my tired mind converted bright lights and contrasting colors into events in time and space. I rounded each turn with machines that traveled faster than sound. Watched them collide and struggle for the top spot—sparks flying when they bumped the guardrails, hit a rough or a landmine or each other. A part of me remembered the pull of the hairpin, the free-fall of a long drop, the strain in your arm when you tried to right yourself after a nasty spin. It wore down the entire body every time a pilot had to fight his or her machine, before experience told them not to fight, that to win you had to ride with it, not against it.

Of all places that night, in a bar full of racing fans was not where I wanted to be.

I told the guy next to me, "If you put that much boost in a body like that, the thing's gonna be impossible to control unless you're equipped with the latest in cybernetics, and even then you're gonna be in a world of hurt if you try racing it in any path other than a straight line."

He frowned and looked at his drawing. With his pen, he started sketching out equations on the side, consulting the numbers on his computer pad at the same time. Then he resorted to the stylus, making it fly in rapid arcs and strokes across the screen.

I waited. In a minute, he would see that I was right.

A picture formed as if it were being uncovered rather than drawn. It was the mark of a cybernetic hand at work. He had sketched it out for my benefit only. If I had bothered to keep up with the latest implants, he could have just linked me the visual on the spot.

"What about if I changed it like this?"

The room erupted into screams and applause. Fists pumped into the air. Screams and whistles attacked my ears even through the haze of alcohol.

Mr. Engineer looked up in time to catch the replay.

I grinned, but it felt too much like a grimace, like a smile cut with a knife. Then I downed the rest of my drink and promptly ordered something stronger.

I was not in the mood to discuss physics that night.

x x x

Maybe, at first, I told myself it was only temporary.

After it all went down like that first drop on the Trident, everyone involved in the whole episode got themselves a place secured in history. I knew at that point I had to keep a low profile. When you take down a galaxy-conquering overlord—the #1 most wanted bastard on the Federation's hit list—he's gonna leave behind a lot of connections. This means you've now got a lot more enemies than you had before. And if you've lived like me, you already had plenty to begin with. So now that you've either destabilized or demolished the entire infrastructure of a vast criminal organization, made them vulnerable, destroy their livelihood—hating you is the least they could do. Don't be surprised either if some of them are loyal enough to the boss man's ghost to start dreaming about revenge. It happens. Most of the time, our bonds to each other are formed by shared experience, not by our reflections of moral right and wrong.

So, after any major victory, you best have an escape route planned out.

I ended up settling in the city I knew better than any other. Didn't get too far from where I'd been, really. Sometimes, that's the best way to hide. You see, most knew the mask, the trademark helmet, the costume. A few knew the face. But I could count on one human hand the number of people who had ever seen the transition of one to the other, who could connect a legend to some sketched schematic of a man. Without the mask, I became faceless in a city of billions.

For a while, I wondered what it would be like to stay that way. This safe calm that most people knew used to be repulsive to me. Now it was...addictive, pulling me in, holding me down.

I must have thought that I'd get restless eventually. Figured that at some point, something would cross my path while in desperate flight from the law. And then I'd pick myself up like I used to, head off in pursuit. Chasing what, I wouldn't know. Not until I caught it. There had to be something waiting for me out there, some grand prize I hadn't won yet. I'd get there someday. I'd go after it once I got done catching my breath.

And I said this to myself every day that I stayed.

Got a job repairing starships. Got used to routine. Got pills to help with the sleep. Needed to stop dreaming about what I used to be.

Got old, basically.

I stayed out of the talk of hovercraft racing whenever it came up between the other guys on the job. On those frequent group trips to the local bar, everyone held deep, personal discussions over a beer or two, and eventually the conversation would land on who thought which pilot would win the next cup. I always kept my damn mouth shut about it. The big screen on the wall constantly showed some replay of the day's racing highlights, if it wasn't showing live coverage of a race in progress. With a single glance at any corner of the screen, I could tell you beyond any doubt if it was a lap on Sand Ocean or Big Blue, could pin it down to the specific section of the track. I knew them all. Except now there was no hum in my veins as I thought about them, no burn. Just dead silence in my head.

From those quick clips though, I could see that the kid was doing well, placing high. Guess if there was one thing I did right, it had to be that, stepping aside for a new star rise.

I left the bar early the night he broke my record at Ordeal.

I set my steps towards my apartment, taking deep breaths of that cool, climate-controlled city air. Waited at the red light and couldn't hear the traffic in front of me. Everything was muted.

The pedestrian sign didn't change for a long time. Something was different, even though nothing around me had changed.

Maybe, I thought, maybe it was because the colors were starting to fade in my field of view.

The old dogs of the circuit, we've got a motto about that too. Something about how the older you get, the more colorblind you get. It goes with the saying, 'The most dangerous color is green.'

I remembered one time, back when he was new, a young pilot asking me what that expression meant. I told him it was because green was the color they used to signal the start of the race.

Then this rookie told me something I didn't expect.

He said that when he raced, he would watch that light at the bottom of the signal panel and wait for it to turn on. When it did, the GO! Screens dropped down from overhead, appearing in a multitude of different languages, and then he just hit the fucking accelerator—just like everyone else.

He didn't need to know what color the last light was. He had never seen it.

In his world, there was no color. He had been born in a time before they could fix that kind of thing. When they brought him out of cold-sleep and into our modern time, his visual cortex had already adapted to a monochrome reality. Even the latest implants wouldn't work on him because his genetic modifications were outdated. The work required to change all that was incredibly expensive, dangerous, and not necessary since his mind had already compensated for the disability.

He had asked me what it looked like—the color green. I didn't know how to explain it to him. Who would? So I just told him, "It's a feeling."

Red meant danger to everyone else. But to us, it was safe because it made you stop. Green was a challenge. It set you off, pushed you forward, made you floor the accelerator. The track could come to an end five meters in front of you, but the sight of that color made you rush head-on into it anyway. Green was dangerous because it flipped an on-switch in your mind that made you run, made you risk everything.

"It's the feeling you get right before zero to 1,000."

I think he got it then. He told me that greyhounds sometimes chased imaginary rabbits. No one knew why.

We got to an understanding, the two of us. But I had held back one thing. I didn't tell him that for me the most dangerous color wasn't green. It was actually—

Someone called my name from across the street. It came from the right.

I stopped, felt my blood run cold. Apprehension kicked in. That was my old name. It belonged to someone else now. No one should have been able to attach it to this face. No one except for…

Well, Rick Wheeler was in the middle of a live, galaxy-cast interview for his win at the Emerald Cup. Black Shadow was dead and disintegrated across the outskirts of known space. The universe had probably recycled him by now. So that left…

I looked to the right—had one hand gripping the pistol in my pocket, just in case.

Both of us froze when our eyes locked.

x x x

When I finally put an end to everything that I knew, I was too old to be wild, but too young to wait for the finish line. I had some things to my name, could make a few claims, had some bragging rights even. But I was already on my way out. My time at the top was closing out, and it was closing fast. I didn't race the Diamond Cup anymore. I'd stopped hunting bounty. My name fell from the standings. The way the world works is that time starts counting down the moment the announcer calls,"Game." And for every second that follows, you age another year, a decade passes, your memory fades, and everyone starts to forget your name.

The problem wasn't the new faces surrounding me. I could beat them all in a heartbeat.

The problem was that I couldn't shake this feeling, like I was always racing my shadow.

How do you get rid of something that stalks just a step behind your every move? How long before you realize that it's not even a separate entity? It's just a part of you, one of the things you carry.

When I chose my last bounty, I knew it would be my last. Better to go out with a bang rather than a whimper. That way, people remember you only at the top of your game.

My final mission saw my skill in highest form. Even I wouldn't be able to follow my own act. Every bounty hunter dreams about that one big payout, the one that defines and ends your career all at once, the one that will have you set for life. Because, let's face it, no one in his or her right mind wants to keep doing this shit forever.

And I—out of all the other drones chasing this same rabbit-dream programmed into our brains—got there.

Since then, I hadn't had to worry about earning a living.

What was strange was that I never thought I'd live long enough to retire. When I was younger, I had hoped for a quick burnout, a crash on the track, some fugitive with a lucky shot. I didn't know exactly what. Just something. Just so that they'd all tell stories about how the Captain went down fighting. Maybe then I'd have a place in the hall of fame, somewhere between the Star Fox crew and the Metroid killer. Yes, they all took out their share of bad guys, and they even competed in the Smash tournament too. But they never flipped sideways during a grand prix and had to ride the side-rails of Mute City to victory, now did they?

If you listened to the talk at the informal bounty hunter conventions—you know, those impromptu meetings held in the dank corners of spacer bars where ragged old men and a few tough-as-nails women congregate—you might have heard the official version of my story bounced around, if people still cared enough to bring it up. That version, like any tall-tale, came out just how I wanted it to. We're all going to die anyway, so who wouldn't want to go out like an asteroid, taking down a universal menace with you. In all the rumors and hearsay, I got my heroic bow-out.

It didn't really happen that way though.

In real life, I just got tired. The galaxy is grand, no shit, but the more space you cover, the less you can recall about where you started this game. To remember who I was, I had to put Captain Falcon to rest. I died in the public eye so I could change my name and move on. I gave up my machine, my life, my legacy and left it all to a kid grown up enough to cast a shadow but still new enough to the worlds to have stars in his eyes. And then I walked away. Gone. Finished. Game over.

But there was one loose end I left behind.

x x x

Never knew regret would look like this.

For a moment, neither of us was man enough to do anything about it. Then he took a step forward. He paused. Wavered. And came forward again. The cloak was deep blue. So were the bangs and the eyes that were on me.

I used to drive a machine of the same metal.

Nothing special. Just a boy with soft features. Small frame. White skin. Hair just long enough to get in his eyes.

Nothing special, but I had a lump in my throat anyway.

He stopped right in front of me. His eyes never left my face.

My tongue stalled. I had to get it working somehow. He always waited for me to make the first move.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

He flinched, either at my poor use of a clichéd line, or at my obvious lack of tact. I was an idiot either way.

"I thought you were dead." His voice shook very slightly.

"Everyone dies at least once, Marth-kun."

I watched his eyes harden. Before I could say anything else, he snapped out a fast, angry string of Japanese. Then he turned away from me and started walking.

Without thinking, I ran after him, caught him before he got too far. He pulled back and could have ripped my arm out of its socket if I had held on. But at least he stopped.

There was something I should have said. It just wasn't coming to me. He stood without looking at me, eyes downcast and partly hidden by strands of blue. Whenever Marth held himself like that, breaths going fast, almost completely still, looking nowhere but down, it meant trouble. People got hurt…

And occasionally thrown off of Pokemon-shaped floats.

I glanced in the direction he had been heading. "You don't want to go that way." Those dirty old men would be on top of him in all of two seconds. It was that kind of neighborhood.

I liked to convince myself that I was somewhat different from them. At least just a little bit.

He looked up at me. The sudden storm had subsided. But a calm like that meant he could just as easily KO you as kiss you.

"Then," he whispered, "which way do I want to go?"

x x x

I took the first match we ever fought. But I didn't take all the ones that followed. It was luck and experience that won it for me the first time. He eventually learned not to fall for my usual tricks—faster than I learned not to fall for his, any of his.

Those nights, I stayed up late, even though my body was sore after each bout of training or matches. I had too much to think about, running replays of the day's action through my head every night. Hard to sleep when your mind kept coming up with different strategies of how to outdo your opponents. The fight was a whole separate animal from the race. Required a different set of rules. But the part of me that lived for it was the same. The same machine in my head took over when the announcer shouted, "Go!" The machine broke down everything for me, so that every move became numbers and equations. I dodged and attacked on reflex. In training you worked out your tactics. In the middle of a match, you didn't have time to think about that—you just moved the way you had programmed yourself to move.

Fight is an instinct, but it is also learned behavior.

To help with the sleep, I occasionally snuck to the downstairs kitchen at night. I knew where the liquor cabinet was.

He surprised me by setting a glass on the counter in front of me as I poured out a scotch on the rocks.

"You sure you're old enough to drink?"

He raised an eyebrow. He was probably trying not to look offended. Probably thinking that commoners lacked a lot of manners these days.

"I'm old enough to rule a country, Captain."

His voice was soft, the foreign accent just barely distinguishable.

I shrugged and filled his glass. "As long as I'm not breaking any laws." I had enough etiquette to hand him his drink first. "And just Falcon's fine."

I held back a laugh when he choked on the initial sip. He took the napkin from me without looking directly at my face, but after the coughing stopped, I found him trying to cover up a smile, cheeks flushed. He might have been embarrassed.

"Takes some getting used to," I offered with a straight face.

The smile showed itself fully.

He looked incredibly young right then. Way too young. It was something I would remember about him, something I would turn over again and again in my head, even after I realized there would be no "us."

Where he came from, I guess people didn't live too long. He was considered a man at his age. But I couldn't really trick myself into seeing that.

At his age, I would have still been a boy by normal standards—would have, if I hadn't grown up faster than I was supposed to.

One thing we had in common, I guess.

The left side of his face was taped up at the temple, where my fist had busted him open earlier.

"Poison, such as this, can't be good for you," he said.

"Neither is insomnia."

"You drink too much coffee."

"I get sleepy in the morning."

"Something must be upset in your head if you have night and day reversed."

"Yeah?" I finished the rest of my drink and poured another. He gaped at this. "You got a cure to offer me?"

"No. Unfortunately."

"Well," I said, "working out is supposed to release endorphins into your system that encourage relaxation and sleep."

"You have not had enough of a work out today?"

"Maybe not…" I caught the offensive nature of that comment a second too late. "You did a good job of giving me one though. I must have developed tolerance. It's always like this for me."

"Oh."

"But then, sex is supposed to help with sleep too..."

He blinked at me.

That had probably not been the best thing to say.

He looked down, appearing nonchalant. I realized I was probably scrutinizing him too obviously. Couldn't help it.

He really was a small thing without that overly dramatic cape and shoulder armor. And that wasn't Marth's only problem. Some of the other guys had a way of gawking and laughing whenever he walked into the room. They'd nudged one another, joking, "Hey, there're a lot more girls fighting this time!"

"Cute" wasn't the right word for it but something close. Didn't seem a fair match-up, me versus him. But I had a feeling. I remembered the way he moved in the ring. He had potential. His speed could eventually make up for his lack of power.

With a few more wins under his belt, maybe the other guys wouldn't harass him so much.

"Do you think," he asked, "that the others think the same of me?"

"I don't understand what you mean by that."

There was a pause before he replied. "I think you do understand."

"They don't look down on you, if that's what you mean," I answered. "I don't. If you think you don't belong here, you're wrong. You do belong here. The only one who seems to think less of you as a fighter is yourself."

The eyes that met mine were dark blue—and dead serious. "I haven't beaten you yet."

"Well, true." I grinned. "But that's because I'm just that good."

His eyes narrowed a bit. "Choose a stage."

I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Have you had too much to drink?"

"No. It'll take more than this to get me drunk."

"Good. Let's go." He was on his feet.

"Wait a minute…"

"You said you need a workout to fall asleep. So let me help you."

"Yeah but it's the middle of the…"

He was already turned around, walking out of the room. At the doorway, he stopped with his hand on the door frame, turning to look at me over his shoulder. "Don't be shy, and don't hold back."

He bent down slightly to pick up a cloth-wrapped bundle leaning against the wall before walking on. Silently, I followed.

Maybe cute was the right word.

The dimly lit hallway led to the arena. It was a lonely place in the after hours. Marth walked past the training room and a number of other identical doors. He finally stopped.

"This one should be familiar to you."

They all were, I wanted to say but didn't, and stepped in with him onto the launch pad. Below us, the grey expanse of the Mute City track loomed like a still ocean. I looked back at him. I didn't have my helmet and fighting suit. He stood without cape and armor, drawing on blue gloves that reached his elbows but left his fingers exposed. His deft hands untied the cloth bundle to reveal sword and scabbard.

"You sure about this?" I asked, but it was a rhetorical question.

He offered a small smile, one with an edge.

The computer announcer shouted, "Go!" and we both fell.

The track felt solid beneath my feet. I looked up to find him almost on me.

He unleashed an offensive. The sword bit into me. Even with the safety protocol on, it still hurt. I found myself launched across the stage.

He closed the distance between us pretty fast. I dodged the tip of his blade and got in behind him. Before he could turn around, my fist rocked him and sent him over the edge.

The moving platform had stopped, and he was able to drop onto the track below. I pursued. My attacks were sloppier than usual. I had lied about the booze not affecting me. He sidestepped most of my misfiring fists.

Marth had a slender athlete's body. He moved like a dancer. In the middle of frenzy and mayhem, his weapon struck with pinpoint accuracy.

I had given up a bit of mobility when I bulked up to my current weight. I was still the fastest thing in a straight line. But when the track curved, when Marth twisted and hopped with deadly grace, I couldn't keep up.

Elegance like that didn't come naturally to me. Fighting was not the same as racing, and was not the same as ballet.

When I got sloppy, I forgot to defend. I attacked without thinking, tried to intimidate with aggression so that my opponent wouldn't be able to get a shot in. Marth saw through this about midway through. He had a clearer head, and he kept landing hit after hit. My damage meter skyrocketed.

But the thing about alcohol is it keeps you from feeling pain. Meaning I was past 200 already, getting knocked down again and again, but I kept getting up like it was nothing.

This was dangerous. You could die this way. One thing any fighter knows is that pain is your friend.

The turning point came when his damage crept up past 150. I barreled in to take advantage of his growing lightness. Cold steel flashed at me, impossibly fast. Somehow, I was faster.

I crashed into him. We both took damage, but he fell further. As he scrambled to regain his footing, I ran in with a fist pulled back and ready.

Falcon Punch met Dancing Blade.

The impact knocked me on my ass. And Marth…

He couldn't land from that one.

"GAME!"

I grinned through the pain, chuckling in disbelief between heavy pants.

Speed and accuracy were good things, sure. But sometimes, brute force worked too.

x x x

"Quit looking so sour." I threw a towel at him. "You'll get better."

Marth managed a delicate grimace. He said nothing. I was starting to regret taking him on. The tournament organizers had a rule against grudge matches.

I watched as he pressed the towel to his temple. It came away with blood. He blinked at it. He took an unsteady step away from the wall he had been leaning against.

"Hey, careful." I reached out to steady him. Stupid. I had forgotten all about our first match earlier in the day.

I led him down the hall and into my room. My first-aid kit was by the bed. I eased him onto the edge of the mattress.

I kept the towel against his head until the bleeding stopped. He looked a little unfocused as I applied disinfectant and bandaged it.

"Uh…you okay?" I asked.

He blinked at me. Then his eyes fell. "Ch…" It was a sound, not a word. He seemed like he wanted to laugh.

Finally, he looked up at me. "I'm fine. Thank you."

"Hm." I just nodded.

A moment of silence followed. My head was hurting from either alcohol or the fight. I took a seat next to him on the bed.

We were close. I considered moving away, but that would have only made it more obvious. I laid back on the mattress instead, hands tucked behind my head. Tried to ignore the fact that my eyes were trailing down his backside and around his narrow waist.

"What's your reason?" he asked suddenly.

"My what?"

"You don't need this, do you? You don't live for this." He turned and glanced at me over his shoulder. It looked like one of his trademark victory poses. His left eye hid behind blue hair.

"Who's saying I don't?" I sat up again, hunched over, elbows on my knees. "Everyone's got their reason. It's hard to explain sometimes."

I didn't know how to say it. Green meant go. Go meant fight. A to B to C. That simple. Men like me didn't have reasons. No rights to wrong, no betrayals to avenge, no kingdoms to protect.

Princes and bounty hunters were different breeds.

"I can't fight someone whose face I don't know," he confessed. "That's why I sought you out tonight. I can't read someone who hides behind a mask."

I took a breath and nodded as if it was all normal. "I hide for a reason."

"Sorry. I don't mean to offend you." He paused. "I just had to see your real face." He turned away as if he was embarrassed. "You…don't have to tell me your reason."

"Eh…well, maybe later. I'm not that interesting."

"You are. Your name makes me think of something I can't really speak of. And the way you fight." He closed his eyes. "You are the most beautiful fighter I've ever seen, Falcon."

I nearly choked. Then I laughed outright. He opened his eyes and stared at me.

"Well," I said, "I guess that's because you haven't seen what you look like during a match. It's pretty intimidating."

He showed a vague smile. Silence followed. We both looked elsewhere.

After a while, it was getting to me—the space between us, the things we weren't going to say. I was about to suggest that he go to his room and get some sleep. But then his hand fell lightly on top of mine.

There might have been a bolt of electricity running through his fingers. That was what it felt like at least. The abyss opened up in front of me. A green light.

I glanced over to find him gazing intently at the floor.

"Maybe…I should go." It was a whisper that barely escaped his lips.

I didn't choose to flip my hand over and hold onto him. My fingers had closed over his before I realized it.

I waited for him to face me, but he didn't. So I leaned in towards him.

Blind jump over the depths of White Land. Or Big Blue. It's either ocean or ice. Maybe both. Just gun it, man, the way you old dogs do. Racers, bounty hunters, fighters—none are young anymore past thirty. You know it. Your time is almost over. Last chance. This won't happen again.

I held onto his hand with my left, reached with my right for his chin, turned his face towards me.

Gun it.

He closed the final distance between us.

x x x

Could never tell if he was just playing coy or if he really was that shy the first time. But he had a way of moving beneath me that had me waking up months later from dreams that bordered on reality. I kept reaching for shadows that weren't there curled up next to me. The ocean never looked the same again.

I told him I didn't know if I would be able to leave him. He laughed in a way that was a tease. And then we both left each other, headed for our own lives.

"I'll see you," I said. "Next time."

"Promise." There had been something sad in his voice, something desperate.

"Okay." I played the fool. I didn't know there wouldn't be a next time.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious. That thing stalking me, just a step behind... It had a name; it had a face, hidden behind a mask that was even tougher than mine; it had a plan, an ambition, and something ruthless concealed under a costume no one would take seriously at first glance. Or hell, even at second glance.

Should have known--maybe I did know, just didn't want to admit it--that he would eventually catch up with me.

Black Shadow and I--we caught up to each other, I guess. I had haunted him the way he had haunted me. So that much was inevitable. It would have ended the same even if Wheeler and his crew hadn't gotten involved. What mattered, though, was that they were my allies, and together we went head to head with one of the Federation's greatest adversaries. The final hit was mine. We won, and I watched him die, watched the light break him from the inside out.

Then I fell. Wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Space would take me back. Make me into stardust and light. Take me wherever it was that racers went when they died.

It got me--the same light that took him. It was cold. I saw nothing.

Then a color. Maybe I slept.

Then…

I opened my eyes, a name caught on the tip of my tongue.

I saw green.

I didn't understand. Not until a frame of red appeared around it. Shapes and colors didn't make sense until then. My brain suddenly remembered to kick start depth perception and connect the dots for me.

Shapes became things.

Green was a face shield on a red helmet over an orange suit of body armor.

I turned my head to watch, just now regaining sensation, just now realizing that I still had a body. It hurt. That was all I knew.

The armor stood sideways from my orientation. It came apart on its own. The pieces fell in an orderly arrangement.

Chozo technology had always confused me.

She stood in my view, a formidable figure in a blue jumpsuit, long blond hair tied in her usual high ponytail. She leaned in overhead, her face close to mine.

"Still alive, Captain?"

I coughed.

She drew back, smiling faintly.

I sat up, pulling several cords and lines of tubing with me. I could trace them from my arms and chest to the treatment machine behind me. We were surrounded by the greenish metal walls of her space flyer.

"Well." I coughed again. Took a breath. The pain faded slightly. "Well." I couldn't do much more than just sit there and breathe. My mouth felt strange. Maybe I was smiling too. "Well. Didn't expect this." I looked up. "What would I do without you, Sam?"

"Die?"

"Yeah. Probably."

"You were close."

"I know." I stared at my hands. For a moment, neither of us said anything.

"What did you see?" she asked finally. Her voice was cold steel.

I looked up. "What?"

"They say, among humans at least, that right before you die, you see the color green."

I felt another tight smile. "Yeah?"

She gave a simple nod. "So…" There was some mirth in her tone. "Did you see it?"

"No. I saw…"

When I didn't finish the sentence, she merely clapped me on the back. Aran rarely initiated or tolerated physical contact of the nonviolent variety. Near-death experiences of occasional allies allowed for an exception.

"Sleep, Falcon."

"That name belongs to someone else now."

"Then what name will you go by?"

"No clue."

"And where should I take this ship?"

"I…don't know."

"Then sleep."

I did.

I woke up without a name. And without a reason.

x x x

We're like an old song, love.

But I no longer remembered the melody.

He had his face turned up at me, blue bangs getting in the way of his eyes. Whispering, "Which way do I want to go, Captain?"

I had my mouth pressed to a firm line. My words died in my throat.

He took one of my hands in both of his, clasped it tightly over his chest. I had never forgotten the color of his eyes.

For a moment, I genuinely felt sorry for Rick Wheeler. He would never see this color. He would never know it. He would never know that Big Blue was named for its oceans, that the machine he drove now had been named for the same. Sapphire to him was just the title of a gem, the title of an F-Zero cup.

He would never see this as I saw it.

Marth alone made me colorblind.

I wanted to trace a finger along his jaw, that delicate curve that had always earned him snickers and catcalls from his peers. I wanted the soft skin of his throat, his pale back pressed against my chest.

"I knew he wasn't you," Marth was saying. "It isn't just a name, is it?"

I wanted to ask how he knew. But I held my tongue. In the back of my mind, I already had the answer. Wheeler had collected the bounty in my stead. He would have found my final instructions, willing the money to Samus Aran. And then she would have carried it on a Federation credit chip all the way across the galaxy to an obscure quadrant, to a small planet orbiting a dying star, where a prince lived with the last of his people.

On that planet, winter never ended. From space, it looked like a ball wrapped in snow. Once upon a time, it had been a part of the racing circuit, hosting a track that was notorious for its ice hazards.

They called it White Land.

My first time out there, back when I was young and inexperienced, I almost died on a badly-timed jump. My machine struck the guardrail and ricocheted over the ramp. I catapulted over a sea of ice, so damned sure I wasn't going to make it that I almost gave up on the controls.

The sight of all that endless snow below me, the feel of everything as I flew overhead, burned an after-image in my mind. That was how I knew, years later, when a boy in a blue cape and tunic faced off against me in the ring, when he raised his head and locked eyes with mine--I knew it then.

I knew which star was his.

I sent Aran in my place because I was supposed to be dead. At the time, rumors were running all over the place. Even before Wheeler took up the mask and took over my title, the criminal underworld had a bounty on my head. By tradition, the emergence of a new Falcon meant that the previous one had died. But even now, there were those who suspected that the "old Falcon" was still around.

I couldn't tell him all this. The less he knew, the better.

That was the safe option. It would keep him from harm. And so it was the only option.

Marth was searching my face now, looking more lost than he ever had.

"But…even if that's not your name anymore, are you still my Falcon?"

My left hand was gripping something in my pocket. I had carried it around for too long. Now was the time to let go. Finally.

I took it, slipped it into Marth's hands in place of my own. He didn't look at it. He didn't care. He watched only my face.

I had never known him. Not really. I couldn't read his expression. My mask had broken years ago, but Marth's would never break. It was impervious, and he wore it the way ordinary people wore their real faces. I could never tell with him.

I held onto both of his hands for a moment longer. Waited for the mask to drop.

"Are you?" he asked again.

"I hide for a reason."

He blinked, lips slightly parted. Maybe…that was the crack in the armor. I didn't know. He would never show tears in front of me.

I brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. Couldn't stop myself from pressing my lips to his forehead.

Then I stepped back. Let go.

"Take care, Marth."

I stepped past him and started walking. Further down the street, I spared one backward glance, as mortal as any tragic hero from the old myths.

His cape trailed behind him as he walked away. He never looked back.

Good. Good boy. Regrets are for old bastards like me.

I wasn't Wheeler. He would have tried to make it work. He might have pulled it off. But damn it, I was a better man than Rick Wheeler. I knew, okay, I knew. The things that you want to do aren't always the same as the things that you have to do.

Wheeler had salvaged the remains of my helmet. He wore a good replica when he raced under my old name.

But Aran had found a piece of the original when she pulled me in from the vacuum. One wing from the falcon emblem had broken off and lodged into my shoulder. She removed it and gave it to me as a memento.

I had kept it with me all this time. It was useless. Nothing could fly with one wing.

It would serve Marth better. Let him take it all with him. My pain. My glory. My honor.

And maybe, years from now, or tomorrow, when some assassin finally gets lucky and cashes in on my bounty, maybe I'll see it again, that color, a random misfiring of neurons in the last seconds before the finish line catches up with me. Won't matter. It shouldn't. Just as long as he knows. Life is more important than love. Run if you can't fly.

I'll dream of you too.

END

A/N: I rarely get to type "end" these days. This fic is dedicated to Requiem to Misery. See "Here's to the Night" for further details. Payback was long overdue.

Edit: Also should say, this is more or less what "Cruel Melee" was supposed to be.

Notes on F-Zero canon: This piece borrows elements from the F-Zero anime. But no, Rick Wheeler isn't really colorblind. And Captain Falcon isn't really gay, though his up-b in the game is a little suspect. Some things are taken directly from canon, others are not. To minimize the spoilers, I won't go into specifics. Though I can say that it is better, perhaps, that Falcon gets his heroic bow-out, rather than this.