Chapter 19 #2
"Good." Archangel's expression might have been approval. "Welcome to Guardian. Fury will handle your onboarding when you return. For now, focus on recovery. You've earned it."
The screen went dark.
* * *
The team dispersed gradually after the debrief.
Phantom returned to his equipment checks. Jinx found a corner to rest. Demon and Rook started a quiet card game that would probably last the rest of the flight. Z went to check on Willow in the cockpit.
Dan looked at Raven.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, following him to the far corner of the cargo bay, which was as much privacy as the aircraft allowed.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Raven said, "You didn't have to accept."
"I know."
"You could’ve kept working independently. You're good at it."
"I was surviving it," Dan corrected. "That's different from being good at it.
" He continued, his voice rough, "Nine years alone.
Seven years hunting the Scroll without backup, without support, without anyone knowing if I lived or died.
" He paused. "I thought that was what I deserved.
Penance for letting you think I was dead. For breaking you."
If her heart could have cried out, it would have. Penance? No, that … "Dan—"
"But being here. Working with your team. Seeing what you've built …" He stopped and took a breath. "I don't want to be alone anymore. I want this. The team. The support. The purpose." He looked at her. "I want you."
She felt tears well up in her eyes, and he began to get fuzzy from the unshed tears.
"I want you, too," she said. "I've always wanted you."
He smiled. The real smile. The one that made him look like the boy she'd fallen in love with before Kuro and the Scroll.
"You always looked at me like I'd handed you the world."
"You did in a way." She reached for his hand. "I've been thinking about what Sienna said. About good things happening to our people."
"And?"
"And I think maybe she was right. Maybe people like us … people who were made into weapons … maybe we do get to have good things." She held his gaze. "I want to have good things with you."
"What does that look like?"
"I don't know exactly. We'll figure it out as we go. But I want …" She paused. "I want to wake up next to you. I want to work beside you. I want to come home to you after missions and know you'll be there."
"I'll be there," he said.
"Promise?" Her heart couldn’t handle him disappearing again.
"Promise."
She kissed him. Gentle. Careful of their injuries. The kind of kiss that said I love you and I trust you, and We're going to be okay.
When they broke apart, she was smiling despite the pain in her ribs.
"We should probably get some rest," she said. "Hawaii's still hours away."
"Yes."
"And after Hawaii, it's home."
"Home," he repeated. Testing the word. "I haven't had one of those in a long time."
"You do now."
* * *
The Guardian aircraft landed in Hawaii within twenty minutes of each other. Raven walked across the tarmac to talk to Viper before they offloaded him.
He was conscious, lucid, and making jokes about how he'd milk the injury for at least three months of light duty. Dr. Campbell was already coordinating with Hawaiian medical facilities for his surgery. One of the med techs assured her Viper would be fine.
"He's too stubborn to die," Raven said.
"Damn right," Viper agreed from the stretcher.
Raven stood beside the stretcher. "You did good work out there."
"You did better." Viper looked at her seriously for a moment. "I meant what I said… About being kind of in love with you." As she smirked, he couldn’t hold the seriousness and broke out in laughter.
She rolled her eyes at him and said, "I know. Everyone loves me."
He grinned. "Truth. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate excellence when I see it."
She laughed. "Get better, Viper."
"Always do."
They were wheels up thirty minutes later, with a new flight crew piloting the aircraft, heading east across the Pacific toward home.
* * *
The suburban house in Virginia looked exactly as Raven had left it. Understated. Forgettable. Except now Dan was walking through the door with her, carrying his bag, looking at the space that had been hers and was about to become theirs.
"It's not much," she said.
"It's perfect."
She showed him around, even though she was positive he’d searched the house when he’d deactivated the alarm. He’d seen the living room when they’d talked, but now she showed him the kitchen and her bedroom. The domestic normalcy of a life that had been hers alone and was now shared.
When they reached the front door again, she looked at the black stone still sitting on the doorstep where she'd left it weeks ago.
The signal.
The beginning of everything that had just happened.
She picked it up. Smooth. Cool. The weight of it was familiar in her hand.
Dan watched her.
She reached up and placed it carefully on top of the door frame.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"It means you're home for good," she said. "No more running. No more leaving. No more stones on doorsteps asking permission."
He pulled her close, being careful of the ribs and gentle with the injuries.
"Home for good," he repeated.
"Yes."
They stood in the doorway and held each other, letting the emotion of the years finally settle into an embrace that felt like peace.
* * *
Three weeks later
The bar was called Hal's. It occupied a corner of Arlington that had decided decades ago that progress was optional and had then committed to ignoring it completely.
The bar was constructed of dark wood and dim lighting.
But the beer on tap was cold and decent.
The kind of place where people like her and her chosen family came to decompress, and nobody asked questions.
Raven sat in the booth with her team and felt the satisfaction of seeing all the pieces of her life finally fitting together the way they were supposed to.
Viper was back from Hawaii, his leg healing, his stories about the surgery getting more elaborate each time he told them.
Phantom was arguing with Demon about something completely ridiculous.
Rook was nursing a beer and saying nothing, which meant he was content.
Havoc and Specter were in the corner playing darts with the kind of competitive intensity that suggested money was involved.
Havoc’s woman, Elise, was laughing at the verbal jousting going on between the men.
Jinx had flown home to South Dakota for his downtime.
Z and Willow had arrived late, Z immediately launching into a story about a demolition job in Morocco that had "gone brilliantly, absolutely brilliantly, except for one small incident with a goat."
And Dan.
Dan was beside her in the booth, his arm around her shoulders, laughing at something Phantom had just said, fitting into her family as if he'd always been there.
Maybe he has always been there, just waiting for the right time to come home.
Guardian had received authorization for the operations against the remaining Scroll cells.
Overseas Ops was coordinating strikes. Three cells had already been dismantled.
Nine more to go. Guardian teams were handling those missions because their skills were better adapted to dismantling the cells rather than demolition, electrocution, drowning, poisoning, knifing, and all associated forms of assassination.
It would take months, maybe a year, to root out all the cells, but the work was happening.
Dan’s official position with Guardian had been formalized.
Counter-assassination. Specialized operative.
His first mission under Guardian authorization had been last week, tracking a rogue operative in Berlin who'd been taking unsanctioned contracts.
Dan had eliminated the threat quietly and efficiently and filed his report with the kind of precision that made Fury say, "He'll do. "
From Fury, that was high praise.
Archangel had called her yesterday to tell her that he had formally briefed the owner of Guardian about the Philippines operation. There would be a bonus that would make a real difference for all of them and a quiet note in her file that said "exemplary leadership under extreme circumstances."
She'd said thank you and moved on because the work mattered more than the recognition.
But it was nice to be acknowledged.
Phantom raised his beer. "To Raven and Dan, for finishing what they started and for not getting us all killed in the process."
"Hear, hear," Demon agreed.
The team raised their glasses.
Raven looked at Dan.
He was looking back at her with the expression that meant he was thinking the same thing she was.
This is what good looks like.
This is what we get to have.
"To family," Raven said.
"To family," the team echoed.
They drank.
The bar hummed with conversation and laughter and the warmth that came from people who'd been through hell together and come out the other side.
Raven leaned into Dan’s shoulder. Let herself feel the weight of his arm around her. Let herself be held. It had taken years to get here. But they'd made it.
Together.