Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Fandoms:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Collections:
Project Hail Mary Big Bang '26 - Lightning Round Event Drabbles
Stats:
Published:
2026-07-20
Completed:
2026-07-27
Words:
403
Chapters:
4/4
Comments:
1
Kudos:
4
Hits:
77

discretion & distraction

Summary:

-Grace meets some members of Stratt's Vat on a particularly foggy night.
-Rin has many skills, and bothering to learn people's names and titles is not one of them. A mark is a mark, happenstance or not.
-Rin does a little whoopsies and gets a smidgen caught.
-Not everyone is pleased about the Hail Mary and her crew - one Grover Cleveland Middle teacher in particular.

100-word drabble for the PHMBB Lightning Round mini-event
Prompt(s): Treat, fear, color, thankful

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: sense of decorum

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Uh, you know you’re not supposed to be up here, right?”

A dark-skinned woman looked up from where she had been hanging over a typing redhead who appeared oblivious to the world.

“ID?” Asked the redhead, and, before Grace could respond, the woman spoke rapid-fire.

“White, glasses, and nametag is—” she leaned forward, getting a better glance in the dimness of the evening fog, “—covered in stickers?”

“Dr. Grace!” Redhead scrambled to attention the best he could between the laptop balanced on his knees and hanger-on, sticking out a hand to shake. “It’s a treat to finally meet you, sir.”

Notes:

I cannot write short to save my life.
Meet Rin (my lady!) and James (redhead)! Decided they should get a turn in the phm-verse as well. I wanted a way to get them on the Vatt and be a part of the project while staying true-ish to their characters (James is smart(TM), but Rin needs that criminal element for enrichment), so they're smugglers? The Vat requires a vast amount of resources, and not all of them Stratt can get legally. The fate of the world is in the balance, so the line gets greyed easily.
James is attempting to memorize the profiles and IDs of every member of the Vatt (Not an easy task, mind you) as something to do when he's not working-working. Rin has no such cares and very much relies on James to know who people are (she definitely meets Stratt at least once and has NO clue who Stratt is). That's what he and Rin are doing - what he's currently working on? Disphering the Cyrillic cursive note sent from his latest supplier. How people do not have the decency to use email in this day and age and state of the world is a forever annoyance to him.
It is also, like, the middle of the night, and they're on the deck of the carrier with little to no light - an incredible hazard.
Fun note! (I put too much thought into these one hundred words,,,,,) James is distantly related to the royal family (like, he does not consider himself royalty, but it is, technically, in his bloodline. think the guy who was like: I would have to massacre 85 Habsburgs).