Chapter Text
The screen was green and black. Fuzzy.
The only noise was her muffled breathing in his ear. Without thought, his eyes darted to the blinking screen next to him; her heart rate had picked up slightly, nothing to be worried about. She was calm.
It took a lot to make Agent Whistledown’s heart rate really jump.
He noticed some movement on the screen to his right; red dots of heat were swarming to her northeast.
“We’ve got company,” he muttered into his microphone.
“How many?”
He did a quick count, “Eight. You won’t be able to take them all on at once, Pen.”
“What did I tell you about underestimating me?”
He grinned. “I almost feel sorry for them.”
She crept on in her green and black world, Colin’s camera attached to a locket nestled between her breasts. Always there, monitoring her, guiding her, helping her.
She was coming closer to the mansion now. Even through the fuzz of nightvision, Colin could tell it was a gleaming, modern masterpiece. All glass and concrete, flat like tetris blocks. He rolled his eyes at the predictability of it.
“I wish sometimes they’d pick something a bit more moody,” she muttered in his ear.
“Like a cave?”
He could hear the smile in her voice. “Yes, something more evil lair-y.”
“I’m sorry your career as a spy has been so disappointing, Agent Whistledown.”
“Well, if it helps, it's the bad guys who are most disappointing, I’ve found the good guys to be more than exciting.”
He laughed. “Was that a reference to Gregory’s rendition of ‘I Will Always Love You’ at the Christmas party last year?”
“No, it was a reference to you.”
He swallowed, warm, thick honey filled his stomach. But he’d have to file that comment away for further examination at a later date; the red dots were less than a mile away now.
“I think this is the best shot we’re gonna get all night, Pen. It looks like Anthony’s roadblock hasn’t slowed them down much.”
“Roger that.”
And then she was off. Weaving her way through the garden toward the mansion. Colin made quick work of disengaging the alarm. He’d already hacked the security system, giving the guards a replay of the last fifteen minutes for their entertainment. She’d be invisible.
He directed her down the hallway, left, straight, right, straight, down the stairs, straight ahead.
“You know if you ever get tired of this gig, you would make a wonderful GPS,” she whispered.
“I’ll pop you down as a reference,” he muttered. “The safe should be in here somewhere. We’ve got ten minutes, Pen.”
Penelope moved around the room; they were in an office. A stainless steel desk shaped like an acute angle was in the middle, topped by a matte black computer. A singular silver photo frame sat next to it; Penelope moved to examine it for a switch. Nothing but a picture of a pink, leathery, sphynx cat judgmentally peering back at them. She moved further around the room, pulling at books on a shelf in the corner, shifting an abstract painting aside.
Still nothing.
Colin leaned in, his face just centimetres from the screen. He pushed his glasses up his nose; blue light damage was a hazard of the job. And then he spotted something. “There!” he hissed, “The rug over there, the corner is lifted.”
Penelope rushed over and pulled it back, revealing a trap door. “You, sir, are getting so many Christmas presents this year.”
He flushed. “Did you just admit to being my Secret Santa?”
“No, I got Kate and I have no idea what to get her. You know I don’t need some Secret Santa mandate to get you a present.” She started tugging at the latch, but it wasn’t budging.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell me who you got.” He glanced at the screen to his right; they were nearing the front gates now. “You’ve got about seven minutes, Pen.”
“Keeping secrets has never been my strong suit,” she gasped, still tugging at the latch; it started to shift a little.
“Strange that didn’t come up in your job interview.”
“Oh, you know Danbury, she’s never one for detail.” She gave the trapdoor one last tug and it burst open, causing her to stumble backwards.
“Nice work!”
“We’re not done yet!” she whispered before rushing down the ladder.
She was in a basement. “Pen, there’s only one way out of here; you’re gonna have to be fast.”
“Then let’s find this safe.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard; it’s supposed to be the size of–”
“An out-of-place antique bookshelf?”
“That’s specific…” and then he saw what she’d spotted. The bookshelf was very much out of place. It was significantly older than the building and filled with leather-bound books. From what he knew of John Lumley, he wasn’t a big reader. “Brilliant, Pen!”
She moved forward and started pulling books down until finally, a copy of I Am Pilgrim made a loud click causing the shelf to swing away from the door, revealing a safe.
Bullseye.
“Ok, the code should be zero, six, zero, four, one, eight, one, two.” It had taken hours of interrogation to get that from Dr Cho. He held his breath as she entered the last digit; the pad glowed bright green.
They’d done it.
“Seamless as ever, Bridgerton,” she murmured before snatching the metal briefcase within and turning to make her escape.
—
“Cheers to us!” she exclaimed, smiling into her drink.
He tapped his beer can against his computer screen. “Cheers to you,” he replied, his cheeks aching from smiling so much. It had been a long few months to get to this point.
“I wish you were here to celebrate,” she murmured, staring back at her reflection in the mirror before her.
This was their tradition; after every successful ‘away’ assignment, Pen would find herself a bar with a mirror and pretend she was sharing a drink with him.
“And leave my salubrious surroundings?”
“Ah, yes, I suppose Monaco doesn’t quite have the same grandeur as a basement in Mayfair.”
He laughed. He was currently sitting alone in the office, his computer screen shining bright white on his face. The office for MI6 Agent Handlers was less than glamorous. It was a maze of cubicles in grey and beige. Somebody, likely Gregory, had attempted to brighten the place up with strings of tinsel but they were so jarringly bright and shiny in the dank room, that they only highlighted the overall dullness.
It served its purpose though. It was a fortress.
Bomb-proof, nuclear-proof, and if IT were to be believed, hacker-proof. So while it often smelled a little damp, and had a rumoured bat problem, Colin appreciated it for being quite possibly the safest place in England. He did sometimes wish that he could bring a plant in to brighten up his desk but the lack of natural light would be horti-cidal.
“We’ll have to celebrate when I get back.” She lifted her hand to her chest and traced along the delicate gold chain that held the locket where Colin’s camera was placed.
Colin’s mouth went dry. There was a tragic irony in the fact that his camera was always nestled between Penelope’s breasts. What he wouldn’t do to swap its place.
But that would be a career-ending move.
An Agent Handler could not throw himself into the breasts of his Agent, no matter how wonderful they were. He was already toeing the line of professionalism by thinking of Pen as his friend. It had been drilled into them from the day one of training that emotions only got in the way of the rational and critical thinking that was required for the role.
So when Pen said that she wanted to celebrate on her return, he should have said no, or at least directed the conversation toward another topic; instead, he said, “There’s a great little gin bar that’s just opened around the corner from my place, we could go there.”
“I’d love that,” she replied, her cheeks flushing a lovely rose colour.
Colin took a giant gulp of his beer; he knew he was edging closer and closer to the sun. But she was like a magnet. He should have asked to be reassigned years ago.
It had started out innocently enough; he’d been assigned to Agent Whistledown five years prior after his previous Agent retired. He and Penelope had clicked instantly. It was like they were one mind in the field. Unlike other Agents he’d worked with, she wasn’t a giant ego. They were a team, which was something Colin couldn’t take for granted; most Agents treated their handlers like one would a nagging mother. Pen respected him, and the feeling was more than mutual.
And then little bits of her personality, her personal life, her quirks started to slip through in their conversations. The artificial barrier they’d built to protect themselves from growing too attached started to crack. Until one day, it had completely disintegrated, and Colin suddenly realised that Agent Whistledown might possibly be his best friend.
They tried to keep it quiet, only interacting briefly at work events, keeping debriefs of their assignments cold, black and white, but sometimes he would catch her eye when she was in the office and he would feel a smile break out onto his face like a tidal wave.
Once he realised they were friends, he should have gone straight to Spymaster Danbury and had himself reassigned. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust anyone else to handle Pen.
What if they fucked up?
What if something happened to her?
Besides, Benedict was Anthony’s handler and surely brotherly affection was just as bad, if not worse, than friendship.
But then they’d been assigned the Mykonos Mission.
Christ, it had been torturous. He had known on a baser level that Penelope was gorgeous; he had eyes. But he’d successfully been able to squash down that fact up until Mykonos. It was a Black Bag Operation; Pen was tasked with infiltrating a Mining Magnate’s superyacht. She was to bug it, scour it for any information on illegal arms trades, and take photographic evidence where possible. A straightforward mission, except for the fact that she had to go undercover as a ditsy guest of one of the magnate’s advisors.
For three days straight, Penelope had worn nothing but barely-there swimsuits.
For three days straight, Colin had sat at his desk with a raging hard-on.
It had been torture.
While the mission was deemed a success by Spymaster Danbury, Colin saw it for the disaster it was. He was in love.
That was when he really should have requested a reassignment.
Two years later, here he was, pining at a desk in a basement somewhere in Mayfair. Staring at a screen, jealous of a camera.
Pathetic.
He spotted some movement in the mirror. “Pen, it looks like someone is coming up behind you.”
She turned around to face a tall man with angular features, even his sideburns were sharp, hair greased back, his eyes icey. Colin was instantly suspicious. Then a smarmy grin slid on the stranger’s face, a thick East London accent dripping off his tongue, “On your own tonight, gorgeous?”
Colin pressed his lips together to prevent a groan from falling out of his mouth. He hated this part. When strangers at bars would come up to Pen and blatantly hit on her. She obviously never did anything when Colin was in her ear and on her breasts, but he couldn’t help the masochistic thoughts that taunted him about what would happen if he wasn’t. “I was just finishing up, actually,” Penelope replied.
“Shame,” he murmured before slowly reaching up to her face. Colin couldn’t see what he did with that slimy hand, but he could see the way the man was staring at Pen as if he wanted to inhale her. Without thought, his eyes glanced at her heart rate; it had picked up.
Colin’s stomach lurched; Christ, was she actually interested in this human sludge pile?
Penelope batted his hand away, “As I said, I was just on my way out.”
“Let me buy you a drink. I’ve been wanting to get to know you, Miss Featherington.”
Colin’s stomach dropped.
How the hell did he know her civilian identity?
And then the screens went black.