The Agent
Mateo isn’t a man of many words, but I’ve never seen him this quiet before.
After he collected Ares’s personal belongings from the hospital, we used his wallet to find his home: a townhouse on the edge of the city.
Inside, the walls were bare and only the essential furniture lay around the rooms. Throughout all my years in the FBI, I’d never seen a living space so empty.
Even with some of the worst of the criminals, there was usually at least one belonging of interest: a photo, a painting, a candle - something that marked the space as theirs.
I wondered if Ares was here long enough to claim the place.
With as much as we moved around, I wouldn’t be surprised if he never got the chance to make this house a home.
Mateo walked up the wooden steps to the upper level, barely casting a glance at the rooms beyond the entryway.
Maria and I exchanged raised brows before following behind him.
“Have you ever been here before?” I whispered to her.
She shook her head.
On the upper level, all the doors were closed. The blinds on the window at the end of the hall were pulled shut, trapping the hall in darkness.
Even without a light to guide him, Mateo easily counted down the doors until he found the one he was looking for. Turning the knob, he unveiled the office on the other side.
A desk sat between a full bookshelf and rows of file cabinets. Atop it was a desktop computer, a few small picture frames and a small replica of a Steelers helmet. A folder lay over the keyboard. As I came closer, I realized Mateo’s name was scribbled on the front of it.
Mateo sighed as he sat in the rolling chair behind the desk, his shoulders falling from the newfound weight of the throne.
“Can we help with anything?” I asked.
He set an elbow on the armrest of the chair and leaned his chin into his hand.
“Nah,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on the folder.
“I’ve gotta…I’ve gotta read through the instructions.
Sort through whatever he’s got on this computer.
Figure out what I’m gonna do next.” His chest rose and fell with another deep breath.
“We’re probably gonna be here for a little while. ”
We can sort through the kitchen, Maria suggested. Make sure there’s enough groceries to last us a few days.
Mateo nodded. His eyes had already glazed over, his mind somewhere else.
Maria and I headed out of the office, closing the door behind us.
“Is he gonna be okay?” I asked as we jogged down the steps.
I don’t know, Maria signed with a frown. Time will tell, I guess.
We spent the next few hours rummaging through the fridge and pantry, checking dates on containers and tossing any medications we found with Ares’s personal information on it.
All of his prescriptions were in what I assumed was another alias: Jonathan Anderson.
Although the name might’ve been fake, it made me wonder what Ares’s real name was.
Made me ponder over the idea of changing my own someday.
While I haven’t necessarily felt like the woman I used to be, I’m definitely closer to the woman I’ve always wanted to be. I didn’t think I needed a name to solidify her. The one my parents gave me was working just fine.
By the time we finished cleaning, the sun had set and both of our stomachs were grumbling. We decided to make a home cooked meal as opposed to ordering. We figured after the day Mateo had, he might appreciate some food made with love and intention.
Once the food was ready, I carried his plate to the bedroom and knocked gently on the door.
“Come in,” he replied, his voice lower than usual.
When I opened the door, I saw him sitting at the desk in the corner, typing away on the computer. His eyes were red from the excessive amount of blue light, and bags were beginning to form under them.
“Take a break,” I told him, closing the door behind me. “Maria and I made your favorite.”
He barely glanced at the plate of jerk chicken and rice I presented to him. “I’m not hungry,” he muttered.
“Mateo, I know you’re riding some tough waves right now, but you need to eat.”
“I will,” he promised. “Just not now. I’m in the middle of something.”
“Whatever you’re doing can wait twenty minutes.” I slid the computer out from under his fingertips and placed the plate there instead. “Eat.”
He picked up the fork with a sigh. His lips pulled into a deeper frown as he poked at the pieces of chicken.
“Do you wanna talk?” I asked.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he murmured. “Loss is a part of life. It is what it is.”
I rubbed his shoulder. “It’s alright if you’re sad or angry or hurt. You don’t have to pretend you’re not.”
“I’m not pretending. Death doesn’t bother me much anymore. Besides, Ares didn’t leave me much to be emotional about.”
“Sure he did; he saved your life. That’s gotta mean something, right?”
“I guess,” Mateo muttered. He lay his hand underneath his chin, his index finger tracing over his top lip.
I could tell there was more he wanted to say, so I waited silently until he was ready to let the words out.
“Our relationship was…complicated,” he said, his eyes glazing over, immersing him in another time.
“He’d never taken in anyone that young before.
He was always toddling the line between treating me like a normal trainee and treating me like a son.
Sometimes he veered on the extreme side of the former to prevent emotional attachment.
He could be really hard on me at times, like he was just begging for me to hate him. ”
“Did you?”
“I was a bad ass kid with a strict ass guardian. Of course I hated him.”
I smiled.
“I thought about running away more times than I could count. But I didn’t because one: he was just going to catch my ass and two: I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
My family thought I was dead, so I…I didn’t have a home anymore.
As rough as things were sometimes, I’d rather that than live on the streets alone.
Besides, Ares wasn’t bad all the time. We had moments when he was softer - when I could tell he really cared about me.
If anything, I’m disappointed we didn’t have another one of those before he died.
I just…I just never knew if he was proud of me. ”
“He wouldn’t have handed all of this over to you if he wasn’t.”
“Yeah, but…it would’ve been nice to hear it.”
I perched down on his lap as I wrapped my arms around his neck, giving him a tight hug.
I knew exactly where he was coming from.
Parents smother us with expectations and when we exceed them, they just set the bar higher.
Not once do they stop and pat us on the back for reaching it the first time. Now, ours never would.
Mateo’s head fell into the nook of my neck, sinking into my embrace as his arms squeezed me tight.
We sat there for a while, holding on to each other while we floated in the sea of grief.
It was harder for the waves to pull us under since we were together, helping each other up every time one threatened to knock us down.
Here, in this little life raft, we finally found a safe place to sift through them.
And that was better than either of us could ever ask for.
“Will you go away with me?” Mateo broke the silence, his voice small.
“Haven’t I already?” I teased.
“I mean, go away somewhere nice. Just the two of us. I was looking through Ares’s files, and he’d just assigned all the others jobs earlier this week. We’ve got a little time before I have to give them more. It’ll be like a vacation. When we get back, our new work will start.”
“Our?” I raised a brow.
“You didn’t think I was gonna run this shit alone, did you?” He lay his hand on my face and rubbed my cheek. “You’re part of the team now; I’m not doing anything without you.”
Smiling, I pecked a kiss on his lips. “Alright. Where do you wanna go for this ‘vacation’?”
A tiny smirk appeared on his face. “I know the perfect place.”