Chapter 15 Past
Past
Rohan
After that last mission, Snow pulls me off active duty.
I’d snarl at her about it, but I don’t actually mind too much.
Staying on the FISA base, with completely free access to their labs, gives me time to work on a project I got the idea for after Guardian was shot.
More accurately, it reminded me of a project I started and abandoned years ago when I realised the implications of it.
There were some lines I drew for myself, even when I worked for OI.
I didn’t want them getting their hands on something too potentially game changing.
But now I’m with FISA, and as shady as they are, being a government agency, I don’t mind digging into old ideas like this one.
For weeks following my night with Aaron at the safe house, I bury myself in creating a new material, one similar to Kevlar, but better, stronger. A material capable of standing up to bullets, fire, and explosions while being lighter and more flexible than any existing form of body armour.
I don’t think about Aaron too much if only because I’m so caught up in my work, barely giving myself time to sleep and eat.
I don’t think about Aaron’s rough mouth on my skin or his strong hands fisting my hair.
I don’t think about his sex-soaked voice challenging me to fuck him harder or the totally blissed-out look on his face after he comes.
It’s during one of these all-night sessions that I’m confronted with a face from my past that I didn’t expect.
Dru Nash is a young computer hacker, an undeniable genius of the game who OI tried to recruit a few years ago when she somewhat foolishly managed to land herself on their radar.
She successfully avoided being snatched up and forced into servitude to OI, an impressive feat all on its own, and seemed to disappear completely.
I remember the loss of temper by my dad when his agents lost her, when they failed to bring her in. He threw a chair at one of them. A fucking chair. It was hilarious. I probably owe Dru a present just for inspiring that little dramatic loss of composure.
Dru catches me in the lab, barely coherent after too many energy drinks and nowhere near enough food, having no clue what time it is or even if it’s day or night outside, and she asks me what I’m working on.
I’m reluctant to engage at first, but Dru is persistent, and we spend the next few hours discussing my project, throwing ideas back and forth, Dru offering some invaluable insights I wouldn’t have considered.
After that, Dru comes into the lab whenever she feels in the mood, either to bring me food and coax me into taking a break or to help me with my work.
She doesn’t ask about my dad or my reason for joining FISA although I can tell she’s very curious, keeping our discussions strictly science based or surface level mockery about more recent events.
Admittedly, it feels good to talk to someone who doesn’t expect any kind of explanation about my past even if she does like to make lots of cracks about the fact I got dumped by Aaron after only a handful of missions with him as my handler.
It’s one such night, where I’ve been alone in the lab for hours, that she wanders to lean over my worktable and once again distract me from my frantic, possibly manic, note taking.
“You look like shit, mate,” she says without any other lead-in.
Dru is an attractive woman, with her dark, curly hair pulled into a messy ponytail and large, round-rim glasses perched on her pretty, heart-shaped face.
She has lovely brown eyes a few shades lighter than her skin and an easy confidence in how she holds herself that only accentuates her natural beauty.
Still, I’m here trying not to think about a man old enough to be my dad who handed me off without a word and hasn’t once come to see me since we fucked, and I’d rather not be interrupted, thanks and goodbye.
“Do I look too busy to deal with your unwarranted complaints about my physical appearance? Because I’m definitely that on the inside.”
Dru leans more heavily on the table, half bent over it with her arms crossed and resting on the metal surface, as she scrutinises me through squinted eyes.
“Why are you wearing pajamas, though?” She sounds wary, like it could be part of some plot that I’m committing myself to.
“’Cause there’s nothing in my contract saying I can’t,” I say wryly.
“Double-checked with Liz.” And what a fun conversation that had been.
Dealing with our head of HR is like haggling with a corporate lawyer who, inexplicably, only charges ten quid an hour for her advice.
Her advice being, mostly, go fuck yourself.
“You look like a sleepwalking teenage hobo.” Dru tilts her head slightly, eyes running over me as if reconsidering. “Or a uni student.”
“Why did you just say the same thing twice?” I ask, feigning perplexion, looking up from my work and offering Dru my undivided attention for the first time.
Dru, as expected, immediately abuses it. She gives me a knowing little smile, like she’s in on a secret. It makes me nervous even though I have no idea what she could possibly think she knows that would scandalise me.
“Senior Agent North wants to talk to you,” she says, and a terrifying mixture of dread and toxic excitement flares to life inside my stomach, the hot tendrils coiling around each other like burning snakes of flame in a firepit.
“About what?” I ask, going for nonchalant and likely failing if Dru’s spark of amusement is anything to go by.
“A mission involving OI,” she says pointedly as if to say “what else,” and she’s right. What else would Aaron possibly want to talk to me about?
I take my disappointment, useless and pathetic as it is, by the throat and plunge it under water, holding the fucking feeling there until it finally stops thrashing and dies.
“Where is he?” I ask, all business, much to Dru’s obvious disappointment.
She pushes away from the worktable and jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “Said to go find him in his office.”
Dru watches me as I put a concentrated effort into making my walk out of the lab look casual, devoid of the agitated desperation that’s shouting for me to sprint all the way there to find out what could have possibly caused Aaron to break the silence between us since that night at the safe house.
As promised, I find Aaron waiting for me in his office, leaning against his desk.
He looks the same as always, serious and aloof.
His face doesn’t change when he sees me, but the immediate dilation of his pupils and the way his eyes drag over me in a slow, thorough assessment, as if some part of him is greedy to consume every little piece of me he can without being able to reach out and touch, tells its own story.
I’d be pissed off about the relief at our separation having obviously impacted him if I wasn’t so preoccupied with taking him in too, cataloging every detail down to the minutiae like I’m going to be asked to describe him for a police sketch artist later.
He looks tired, not quite exhausted but close. There’s a heaviness to how he’s holding himself, a slump to his usually rigid shoulders, and a strain to the cross of his arms over his chest as if he’s struggling to keep it together.
“What’s happened then, boss?” I ask, stepping closer to him but staying out of touching distance. It’s probably safer for both of us if I do that.
Aaron exhales through slightly parted lips and regards me with a watchful expression, like he’s expecting some kind of dramatic reaction to whatever he’s going to tell me.
“On a recent undercover mission, one of our agents discovered two Liquid Onyx survivors being held by OI.” He pauses, that same expectant look on his face. It takes me a second to realise he’s hesitating. I stare back at him, refusing to goad him into spitting it out.
Aaron lets the tension sit there in the air between us, a different sort than whatever was there before, until finally he says, “Their names are Sami Malik and…Jack Roth.”
Ah. That’s what he’s so worked up about.
I don’t comment, waiting for Aaron to go on, revealing nothing. If FISA knows who Jack Roth is to me, there’s no point in confirming it, and if they don’t, I’m sure as hell not going to give up that information willingly.
Aaron doesn’t seem surprised by my lack of response or particularly disappointed. He sighs, pushing away from the desk and letting his arms drop to his sides. He seems uncomfortable, and for the first time since I’ve known him, truly uncertain. About what, I can’t fathom.
“It wasn’t possible for our undercover agent to extract Malik and Roth on his own,” he explains, slowly and oddly deliberate, like there are complications I can’t see hidden in what he’s telling me, “so he’s asked for backup to execute a rescue mission.”
“And … we’re the backup?” I guess. It would make sense to send us in again although Aaron’s shifty behaviour is making me think there’s something weird going on with this whole situation.
“Yes,” Aaron says, that same uncharacteristic hesitation in his voice again, “potentially.”
“What aren’t you telling me here?” I demand, bored with the confusing signals Aaron is throwing off. “You’re being cagey as fuck.”
Aaron’s expression becomes frustrated, and he makes a low, unhappy noise in the back of his throat. Clearly whatever the problem is, it’s pretty significant. To him, at least.
“Technically speaking,” Aaron says, “this rescue mission would be off the books.”
“Director Snow won’t sanction it?”
“No,” he bites out, real anger in his voice. “She feels it would be a waste of resources, considering the fact that Jack Roth and Sami Malik are known agents of Obsidian Inc.”
“Yeah, they’ve killed a lot of your agents in the past, right? Snow still holding a grudge over all that paperwork?” I ask acerbically, unable to hide my bitter amusement.
“It’s not really her,” Aaron says, grimacing at the mention of all those murdered FISA agents.
“The higher-ups won’t let us put agents at risk on behalf of two renowned superhuman OI assassins.
OI might have trained them since they were a children, but they’ve spent their entire lives causing problems for multiple governments.
I doubt they care about the deaths of agents so much as what it would look like internationally if other countries found out we were harbouring criminals responsible for the assassinations of many top-brass politicians and influential businessmen. ”
That’s depressingly likely.
“But you want to go help save the OI assassins despite getting the big N.O. from Snow because …” I let the question trail off, honestly unsure what would get Aaron to do something this drastic.
“Because I know the agent who called it in will go back and try to save them by himself if he has to,” Aaron admits, jaw clenching reflexively. He sounds genuinely afraid of this outcome, terrified even, which is a strong enough reaction from Aaron to pique my interest.
“Who’s the agent?” I ask, telling myself I’m not bothered by the idea that Aaron has some other agent he cares this much about.
“It’s my son, Damon,” he tells me, which certainly explains the fear. It’s not some random agent he feels responsible for, it’s fear for his son’s life if he decides to go on a suicide mission without any backup.
“Alright, got it,” I say, puffing out a loud breath and clapping my hands together. “We better go make sure your kid doesn’t die, then.”
“You don’t need to help me, Rohan. It would be a risk. Not just the mission itself but whatever comes afterward.”
“Piss off, North. You think I’m afraid, of what? That Snow will fucking fire me?” I scoff. “Babe, we’re not that close. Snow can take her job and choke on it for all I care.”
“I’m more concerned we’ll be arrested,” Aaron responds dryly.
“For what, like, treason? Please say treason,” I say eagerly. “Getting arrested by the British government for treason is pretty high up on my bucket list, not gonna lie.”
Aaron huffs out an amused noise, his mouth slipping up into a small smile. “Okay, I get it. Thanks, kid. I mean it.” He fixes me with a significant look. “Seriously, this is big to me. It’s everything.” It’s my family, he doesn’t say, but I hear it anyway.
“Fuck off; don’t get all soppy about it. We better go before your son decides to storm the OI castle and save the murder princesses solo.”
Aaron mouths the words “murder princesses” to himself, looking vaguely flummoxed by them, but he doesn’t comment, moving toward the door instead, an apparent fire lit under him, possibly at the idea his son might get bored waiting for us to show up.
Maybe Damon North has some hero tendencies that result in reckless bullshit on the regular.
Like father, like son, I guess.
At the door, Aaron turns back to me, pointedly eyeing the pajamas I’m still wearing, and asks, “You going to change out of those before the mission, kid?”
I blink at him innocently. “And deprive Obsidian Inc. of some whimsy in their cold, evil little lives?”
Aaron’s mouth ticks up in obvious mirth, and he replies sardonically, “I think they deserve to be deprived, this once.”
I heave a dramatic sigh. “Okay, fine, but you’re dealing with the formal complaints from HR when I tell them you summoned me into your office just so you could induct me into a treasonous plot against the United Kingdom and then demanded I take my clothes off.”
“I’ll weather that storm,” Aaron says, unbothered, a smirk adorning his face that has my cock twitching in memory of his wicked mouth claiming mine, so hot and rough, like he had every right to do it. “Liz likes me more than you.”