Archive of Our Own

“Handle with care, Devineaux, they’re fragile.”

He had talked.

Hours of suffering and debasement in vain, the words had finally began spilling out of his mouth seemingly of their own volition, the machine resting on his brow working to claw them out of his head even as he had railed against its inexorable pull.  

ACME, who worked for them, what they wanted-- everything he knew, as pathetically little as it was.

Yet despite these painful admissions, his captors looked on at him with hard stares, unmoved by his words and showing no sign of going to remove the painful hardware, even as it made his vision flash and compelled his muscles to bulge and twitch. Instead, their gazes quickly turned to other matters as something outside grabbed their attention. His heart sank as both moved to abandon him in his seat, the metal door that locked the three of them in the small storeroom harshly slamming shut behind them.

They had gotten what they wanted, so why would they care about preserving their prisoner? Or perhaps he had been such a small fish they had been disappointed with his meager offering, as much as he may have suffered to deliver it.

Either way, only the sound of the wretched helmet whirring away unattended remained, working itself into a frenzy trying to squeeze blood from a stone that had already run dry. White hot pain lanced through his cranium, so badly he nearly fainted right then and there, with only the frightening thought of being unconscious in the presence of these monsters keeping him awake. Sweat coated every inch of his skin, matting his hair and flowing down into his eyes in stinging drops, yet his throat was dry as a bone and twice as raw. And as much as he thrashed weakly against the rigid chair, the helmet remained pinned tightly to his skull.

He wasn’t sure how long he had sat there in pain, trying desperately not to let it overtake his every thought, when the metal door to the impromptu interrogation room slid open once more, this time with the glaring light of the florescent tubes in the hall shining brightly into the darkened room. A figure stepped forward into the harsh glow, and even in his fugue state, he knew in an instant who had entered, latching on to her striking visage.

“So! You show your face-- I knew you were behind this!” He crowed deliriously, even as his vision clouded and swayed in double. Everything else be damned, the elusive woman had finally shown herself, and at last he could observe the truth with his own eyes.

Unfazed, the figure advanced, stopping short just before him. She reached out, no doubt to twist a hand in his hair, to grab his collar, to make it all worse…

Click.

The pain, which had been drilling into his skull incessantly, stopped in an instant. His whole body, held rigid with discomfort, went slack in its metal restraint as a comfortable numbness crashed over his being. But just as quickly as relief swept over him, so did a wave of fatigue, as the pain that had been holding it back suddenly vanished.

“And be sure the Palazzo takes note of all points of entry. It was way too easy for me to get in!”

The crimson thief before him began to speak— no doubt to gloat over breaking him so completely— but she sounded so very far away, as if she were underwater and not standing right in front of him. To make matters worse, his ears maddeningly refused to stop ringing, even after the infernal machine had been slipped off his head. He wondered if they ever would.

Barely able to lift his head, his vision began to swim even as she knelt before him. He had lost dearly, but she at least wouldn’t get the satisfaction of looking him in the eye; a final comforting thought before unconsciousness threatened to overtake him.

Somehow she must have sensed this too, as she abruptly stood up to pace over to his restraints, undoing them and letting his hands droop lifelessly to his sides. No doubt preparing to move him-- to where, he wasn’t sure, but he could be certain it didn’t bode well. The three of them had gotten everything they wanted from him and had freely shown him their faces while causing him pain.

He had studied enough brutal cases to know the next location could be his last.

A few hours ago, he had entertained a fantasy of breaking free of his restraints, potentially throwing a few punches before bolting out the door to call for backup. He was under no such impression now, however; his body held upright in the chair only by a thin thread of inertia. Yet, despite the fog of pain, the comforting weight of a pen in his slacks poked itself against his thigh as he shifted, an innocuous detail that her two henchmen had failed to catch. His lifeline.

The mere act of pulling it out felt like a herculean task, his mind reduced to vestige and his whole body screaming at him to let it collapse under the strain of the past few hours. His hand sluggishly fumbled along the fabric for the seam of his pocket and the cool metal body within while his brain desperately tried to pull him under, fighting to stay conscious for just a few precious seconds more.  Distantly, he was aware of her coming back around to face him, arms slipping around his chest and bracing herself to lift, and absentmindedly wondered why she didn’t just ask her two buff compatriots to do that.

Almost as if guided by her hands, a familiar shape suddenly found itself pressed into his grasping palm, the tip pressing reassuringly against the pad of his thumb. Somewhere distant, she mumbled something against his ear, but he was already lifting his arms.

Click.

Despite it all, he would never know if it had worked or not until the EMTs were pulling him from the building and into an awaiting van, the ground rushing quickly to meet him while he fell in his own head, vision fading to black before he even hit the concrete floor.

“Jules would understand.”

~~~~~

“-Hey. Don’t take everything so personally.”

Zari quipped, suddenly elbowing his side and allowing the ghost of a smirk to flicker across her face. Chase stared back at her, physically startled out of his mental spiral.

“I…..what?”

“Just an observation. I think that’s your problem— you let everything get to you, Devineaux.”  While Chase had stopped momentarily, Zari continued walking down the Venetian sidewalk, not bothering to turn back around to face him. “Like that man at the museum. He kept going on and on about police this or that, and you stood there and had to debate him. He kept getting to you, and you let him push you around and draw you into an argument.”

“I did NOT let him ‘get to me’, he was being disrespectful and I let him know it!” Chase defended, speed-walking to catch up with her. These were probably the longest sentences he had heard come out of his terse partner since this morning, but he’d be damned if he didn’t defend himself.  Of course, that snooty curator was nothing but an arrogant, haughty-

“No, that’s not how you deal with that.” Zari said flatly, stopping short just as Chase caught up. Slamming the brakes as quickly as possible, he came to an abrupt stop mere inches in front of her, wobbling with momentum. Zari didn’t flinch.

“You don’t argue with people. You state your business politely, let them respond, and if they want to escalate, you don’t take the bait. You should always be the calm one.”

She fixed him in the eye, raising an arm to point loosely at his chest, the movement casual and deliberate. “You’re an agent of the law, YOU are in control. Nothing that he can say or do can change that, so who cares what he thinks? If he has a problem, then he can have a problem—it doesn’t have to become yours.” She glanced to the side, considering her own words.

“…unless they try and pull something. Then you can arrest them.”

“But….” Chase began, “Surely…people just need to understand the importance of-”

“You don’t need to justify anything about yourself to people!” She interjected. “That’s what I’m saying. I see you thinking you need to prove something to anyone that asks. You don’t! All that matters is the job, and that you do it right, so whatever it is you need to do to make that happen, you do. And if it means swallowing your pride and playing nice, then so be it.”

“I…” Chase trailed off, suddenly feeling the weight of his partner’s words. “I see.”

Zari finally fell silent, assumedly having made her point. They walked in stony silence down the side street, with nothing but the staccato clack of their dress shoes echoing down the storefronts, all wreathed in lengthening shadows and closed for the evening. They had already penned Chief, alerting her to their success that morning, and after all had been said and done with the masks, Chase supposed they were finally heading in the vague direction of the Canal Grande, where their agency-booked hotel stood.

Despite starting before dawn and securing the target at sunrise, the work of an ACME agent seemed to never be done before 5. The two of them had spent the rest of the day rushing around the city, ensuring the masks got back to the exhibit, explaining the situation to both Palazzo Ducale and MUVE, its managing body, dealing with the police, and attempting to prevent the inevitable media circus to follow. Planting stories. Diverting attention. The usual. 

In addition, the elation of having finally thwarted their arch nemesis was somewhat tempered by not only the altercation with the curator, but Zari’s recent injury at the hands of one of Carmen’s henchmen. Though he hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together after he had found her crumpled on the floor of the exhibition hall, barely conscious after the thief had made off with her prize. And despite having caught up to him on the boat, Chase would shortly find her breathless and leaning against a wall for support after the two of them had hauled the wooden crate of masks ashore. However, despite his suggestion to have ACME locate an urgent care, she had quickly waived his concerns aside, insisting that she just needed a Tylenol and a few hours to walk it off, and had stiffly glared at him when he almost mentioned it in front of Chief.

Perhaps this was her way of getting back at him.

Even so, Chase was surprised when Zari allowed a rare ghost of warmth to cross her face, muted though it was through her stony exterior.

“Hey. I’m getting on your case a little. You did good today, running down that boat. Don’t let one asshole ruin it.”

This time, Chase waited to respond, the sinking realization that Zari had just subtly proved herself correct not entirely lost on him.  “Oui, thankfully yes,” he said slowly, eyeing her as she strolled on ahead of him.

Zari seemed to loosen a bit at this, continuing her uncharacteristically amiable train of thought.

“I actually have to say I’m glad you’re back here with us, Devineaux. I was hoping you would, after that business back in France-- I was sorry to see you laid up like that.”

Chase was grateful for the change in conversation. “Oh… of course! It takes more than some common criminals to keep me from my work, injuries or no!”

Zari pulled a phone from her skirt pocket. “How’s the head?” She asked without looking away from the screen, thumbing words into a chat window.

“It is er… well it is getting better.” Chase admitted. He wasn’t sure what made him so candid, but not many people had asked him that since Poitiers. “I have had a few more headaches than usual the past few months.” And shoulders that took weeks to feel normal again. And a left wrist that wasn’t quite the same.

“I think when they first…. found me, I fell on my forehead. I had this-” he gestured vaguely “-enormous bruise on the side of my head for weeks. Absolutely terrible!” He gave a halfhearted chuckle, hoping Zari would commiserate with him. Instead, the memory of Carmen hovering in front of him, wreathed in fluorescent light, conjured itself unbidden once more. The ghosting pain of skin rubbed raw against metal handcuffs. A body that cramped and burned from thrashing.

Bonds cut free. A crate given freely.

He quickly buried the sentimentality before it threatened to overtake his thoughts.

“But! Nothing I cannot power through! It feels good to be back hunting again.”

“Good!” She said, glancing up to meet his gaze. A muted ding! from Zari’s hand pulled it away just as quickly. “I’m glad.”

She examined the offending message carefully, then clicked her phone off.

“Listen, I actually was meaning to ask-- the rest of the away team is planning on meeting up at a local place a few blocks from here. You want to tag along? Feels like a shame for you to just go back to the hotel for the rest of the day.”

For the first time since jumping on the boat, the mental specter of Sandiego evaporated from his head in an instant.  He couldn’t remember the last time someone—ACME or Interpol—had invited him out for drinks.

“Yes! I would love-!” Chase quickly corrected his tone and cleared his throat. “I mean, if it isn’t too much trouble for one more person to accompany you…”

“They just snagged a whole table. I think they’d like to meet you.”

------ << O >> -------

Despite its implications at the time, Chase was more than glad Chief had insisted Zari accompany him to Venice. In the past, his English and French has served him well enough when traveling for ACME, however, for once it was nice to travel with a fluent speaker of the place he was visiting— effortlessly navigating the names of winding side-streets and hitching a ride on a boat taxi to reach their destination, making small talk with their gondolier the whole way.

She eventually led him to a restaurant tucked away between the grand canal and a populous side street, down a flight of stairs and into a small doorway under a domed green awning. A wave of cold AC hit their faces the moment the door swung open, greeting them to a cacophony of chatty diners and tinny Italian pop music playing over aged speakers. On one side, large picture windows lent a grand view of the water outside, while the other contained an open bar framed by a row of narrow windows at street level, the vague shadows of strangers cast by the setting sun strolling across the opposite wall. And in the very middle, flanked by rows of packed booths and tables, sat one large seating arrangement for an unmistakable party of foreign spies.

Even from the door, Chase could see that said table was mostly full. Most of its occupants had already shucked their uniform blazers in the summer heat and hung them over the backs of their stools, so he was greeted by a long row of white dress shirts and blouses. To the uninitiated, it probably looked like an office party—a rambunctious group of salarymen coming to celebrate the end of a project, though perhaps that wasn’t even that far from the truth.

Finally surrounded by talking and laughing, it dawned on Chase that he knew exactly none of these people, and that perhaps it had been a mistake to accompany Zari to dine shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, stopping short in the middle of the finely tiled floor. Suddenly seized by irrational dread, he nearly opened his mouth to utter some hasty excuse to her to turn around and leave, all hope of rubbing elbows with other agents abandoning him as quickly as it had come about, but before his mouth could part someone from the table noticed their arrival and waved hello.

“Hey hey! Look who finally showed up!” An Asian man with olive skin and short, dark hair came forward warmly, meeting Zari’s eyes first before turning his attention to Chase. “And this is Chase Devineaux, am I right?”

“That is me!” Chase said, doing his best to match this man’s enthusiasm and shove down his apprehension. “And you are, erm…”

“Dobson. Mike Dobson. Communications and records.” He clapped a firm hand onto Chase’s shoulder as they shook, the inflexible press of a wedding band digging into his skin as he did so. “It’s good to meet you! Zari told us about working with someone new yesterday, but I can’t say I could put a name to a face.”

Sitting behind Dobson, another woman with dark skin and hair raised her glass. “Zari! Get over here!”

“Rodriguez, what’s up!” His partner replied, immediately abandoning him to grasp the woman’s other outstretched hand in the most personable gesture he’d seen from her all day.

Before he could scramble to make small talk, Mike eagerly led Chase to his seat; two bar-high tables butted together surrounded by about 8 different agents. “Come on and sit down! We saved you two chairs at the end with us.”

Interrupted from their greeting, Zari and Rodriguez looked up. “Oh! Who’s this?” the new woman asked.

Zari, remembering her guest, turned to Chase again. “Rodriguez, this is Chase Devineaux, my partner from last night. Devineaux, this is my friend Agent Inez Rodriguez.”

“Nice to meet you!” Chase answered as he shrugged off his own blazer, placing it on the back of his stool before sitting down and shaking Rodriguez’s hand. Her long, curly hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and a gold stud glistened in her nose, matching the hoop earrings that dangled from her ears.

Upon looking her in the eye, Chase also couldn’t help but notice the large number of agents that had discarded their glasses along with their blazers, having hung them on their collars or placed them neatly on the table. Reminded of his own specs darkening his view of the room, Chase quickly plucked them off his face and tucked them into a breast pocket, the restaurant immediately brightening and coming into sharper detail.

“Zari, you going to introduce me?” A man’s voice suddenly came from behind, just as he slid them into place.

Zari raised an eyebrow, looking for where the voice had come from before her eyes fell on the seat next to Chase, who turned around. A lanky, ginger-haired man sat behind him, separated from the group of four by the seam of the two tables.  

“Oh god, you’re here? How come nobody warned me?” she said faux-dismissively, rolling her eyes.

The man grinned, his speech curling with a slight Spanish lilt. “Who do you think got this spot?”

“And they didn’t hang up on you? Almost scared to eat now, they must let anyone in.”

He laughed, then offered a hand to Chase, who shook it. “Ignacio Lombardi. Good to see Zari’s new man.”

“Oh, are you from here?” Chase proffered.

“Oh, no, but I think my primary school lessons are finally paying off.” He said with a laugh, clapping him on the shoulder as he sat.

Soon after, Zari finally took a seat next to Chase. “Ok, you’ve met Dobson and Rodriguez, Lombardi…” She gestured to the next few people seated. “That’s Bronson, Morgenstern, and Sokolov. They were sweeping the main Canal today as backup. You probably didn’t see much of them.”

“Whispering about us down there?” the woman that Zari had identified as Morgenstern quipped, drawing the eyes of her companions. Of the three of them, Chase only recognized Bronson as the man Zari used to accompany, his jet-black hair immaculately slicked to his scalp and the only one at the table still wearing his blazer.  He seemed to be engrossed in his menu, however, only bothering to look up for a moment before flipping to the next laminated page to peruse the appetizers.

“Yeah, we’re talking about how much you all suck.” Rodriguez shot back, to which the three of them only laughed in response. In an effort to be polite, Chase turned to ask Zari about Bronson, only to find she had already moved on to the next topic, having already picked up a menu and deciding what she wanted.

After a few minutes of everyone settling in, it wasn’t long before dinner got underway in earnest. Zari seemed to be the designated head of the table, sitting at the very end beside Chase and translating everyone’s food and drink orders to the waiter in Italian. Across from him, Dobson and Rodriguez sat together, catching up with Zari about the past few weeks while waitstaff scurried around placing dripping-cold glasses of water and steaming plates in front of everyone. Meanwhile, to his right, Lombardi passed on a request for a bottle of Merlot for the whole table, from which Chase poured a modest two fingers for himself.

“I’m drinking to celebrate! Not every day we pull one back from you-know-who!” Lombardi said, patting Chase on the shoulder.

“Agreed! To Zari and Devineaux! Putting the rest of us to shame!” Dobson laughed, offering his glass for a cheer.

“-Yeah!”

“-Cheers!”

Zari cheekily knocked her glass against Dobson’s, reserved as always, but willing to indulge the rest of the table. Beside her, Chase politely met his table-neighbors for cheers, becoming a bit bashful despite himself.

“Haha… I’m sure you say that to all the new people.”

“Oh no, new people don’t usually get the bag that easy! Don’t be so modest.”  Rodriguez said, smacking Chase’s hand playfully. “We’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, actually! It’s not every day ACME gets a new guy in the lineup, so we wanted to see who joined. But then you went off the grid for like three months! Drove us crazy.”

 Unbidden, a crooked smile spread across his face. He did his best to point it at Rodriguez, tugging at his collar at the sudden praise. “Oh come now, you all found me in a parking garage. Surely there’s better people out there than ones you hire off the street!” 

“Nah, we like you! You’re not even the worst guy Chief’s hired off the street!” Dobson said into his beer.

“Off…? Does she make it a habit to find people there?” Chase retorted, genuinely shocked by the admission.

“Oh my god, not the worst by far!” interjected Rodriguez, slapping a hand on the table and making everyone’s silverware rattle against their plates. “Do you guys remember Longwood??”

A collective groan erupted around the table.

“Don’t ever talk to me about artisanal cheese again!”

“Chase is normal, he doesn’t need to hear this!”

Dobson had to put his beer down, laughter suddenly threatening to make him choke. “Alright alright alright- We’re not… we’re not talking about Longwood, let’s not scare Devineaux, ok?”

The table mostly quieted back down, but a few at the other end seemed to devolve into their own Longwood-related conversation. Dobson turned back to Chase, still chuckling.

“I actually don’t think there’s a single person here that didn’t stumble into this line of work somehow. Nothing prepares you for it. I came from the FBI, personally.”

“Fuerza Aérea Mexicana” said Rodriguez.

“Europol” chirped Lombardi, reaching for the breadbasket.

Zari spared a glance at Chase. “Interpol. It’s how I met Chief.”

“And, of course, you’re Interpol as well, right Devineaux? That’s probably why Chief put you and Zari together.”

Now that raised one of Chase’s eyebrows. He had not known that. “Oh? How nice, Agent Zari. You will have to tell me about it sometime.” He tried giving his best smile. “We Interpol people need to stick together, non?”

Zari kept her attention to her food, pouring some olive oil into a saucer for her bread. “Eh, it’s been a long time since then. Haven’t been back in years. I’m sure it’s different now.” She said glibly.

Ever so slightly, Chase deflated, his partner seemingly reverting back to her unreadable self.

As if she could sense his disappointment, she relented, if not only slightly. “But... IP does know how to put out good people. Maybe sometime we’ll have to swap stories.”  

He could settle for that answer. Not a warm reciprocation, but not shot down. It was a start.

He settled back in his seat, finally feeling comfortable. 

“And Miss Argent was Interpol, too.”

At the mere mention of Julia, the air around the table seemed to shift, quieting anyone not participating in other conversation. From the corner of his eye, Dobson’s face softened, suddenly very intent on studying the false wood grain of their table, while Rodriguez silently took another bite of her food. Despite this, Chase forged on, unable to stop himself.  

“I will admit, I wish she was here with us. She would probably be making more interesting conversation than I could.”

Lombardi quickly stepped in to lighten the mood. “She was always one for history lessons! I’ll bet we’d be hearing all about the canals and buildings and things right now if she were. Quite the character!”

“Now, she was your trainee, before all this, right?” Dobson ventured. “I read up on your files while I was fielding radio calls this morning.”

Rodriguez turned to fix Dobson with a look of incredulous mirth. “Dobson, you’re so fucking nosy! Now look who’s going to scare Devineaux!”

Yet another wild admission, but Chase decided not to let it bother him. “Yes, I was working with her for about a fortnight before we encountered la Femme Rouge robbing an apartment back in Poitiers. Then…” Chase gestured vaguely. “you probably know the rest.”

Dobson nodded. “Mmhmm. That’s always tough-- I’m sorry to have seen her go,” A pause.

“-But I can’t say most of us weren’t expecting it.”

Chase paused, a forkful of chopped clams halfway to his mouth.

“…What do you mean?”

“Well, while she was here it seemed like half the time she was trying to re-litigate what a crime was more than she was trying to get after people for them.”

“Yeah. None of us get paid enough to do that. And look where it got her!”

Though the dinner had done a good job of setting his worries aside, they all came flooding back at once at the mention of Julia. If she had been right… if she had been so beloved…. surely there must be some mistake? What could she have possibly done to earn everyone’s ire?

He swallowed, proceeding as cautiously as he could manage. “I have been meaning to ask someone about that. I have not had a chance to catch up on everything I missed while recovering,” he prompted.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right, you haven’t been here the past few months.” Dobson said, his face scrunching up as he realized his blunder. “Well, after you left, Chief did promote her to Agent. Ran around with Zari for a while.”

“Oh, we definitely ran around.”  Zari snipped, unrolling her cutlery from her cloth napkin to dig into her pasta.

“And of course, she left because of the mess back in Seattle.” Lombardi chimed in. “Personally? I don’t blame her. Imagine trying to stay after that! Not to mention the disaster that was Stockholm.”

The mere mention of Stockholm seemed to elicit yet another collective sigh from the dinner party. Chase’s eyes darted around the table, linguine completely forgotten. “What was…?”

“Don’t even talk to me about that.” Zari said, her eyebrows furrowing at the memory. “Do you know how many people I had to calm down after she flew off? Every day I wake up and kick myself for not making more of a fuss about Argent taking that one over.”  She took a sip of wine, her face screwing even further. “Oh yeah, let’s let the rookie take the lead on our biggest sting op in years! Nothing will go wrong.”

“Was that really the worst part? What about when she busted out of the hospital?”

“Oh see—I had blocked that out! Thanks, Dobson.”

Chase’s mind buzzed with multiple questions, but only one managed to come to the forefront. “What happened in Seattle?”

He had heard of some of the events of what had happened in his absence, but Julia’s seemingly unpopular role in them were new to him.

“She let Sandiego get in her head. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t bleed over to Chief.” spoke Zari, frustration at said fact apparent.

Dobson relented, swirling what remained of his beer in his hand. “There was this sting in Sweden. We had tracked Sandiego to a job in the city—some handoff, if I remember correctly. Never found out because it all went bad.” He paused to take another sip before continuing.

“Argent had this idea that she should make contact first, try to reason with her, you know? That she might come willingly. So Chief let her— shouldn’t have, but she did. Then she doesn’t call in for a half hour, so Chief gets worried and has us go back to plan A of capturing her. We track them both down, but she managed to squeeze past our pincer by going up the stairwell and hang gliding off the roof!” Dobson made a wide gesture with his hand, still seemingly incredulous at the last sentence.

“Anyway, we think we’re screwed, but then a few hours later we find her crashed about a mile out of the city! Zari thinks the gas got her before she made the jump and she lost control in the air.”

“I know exactly what I hit. And I don’t miss!” Said agent chimed in matter-of-factly. “A minute more and the drugs would’ve downed her—preferably in a place that wouldn’t have killed her. Unfortunately for us she’s batshit crazy.”

“Well. Not too crazy, because at the end of all of it she decided she wanted to work with us after all!” Lombardi extrapolated. “Julia had warmed her up to it, or at least so we thought. It might have just been the fact we hauled her off to the hospital and not a cell, but who knows. She tipped us off about an operation in Botswanna, which barely netted us anything-”

“-No doubt to draw us in.”

“-Chief was impressed though. Finally met up with her in person in public back in Seattle. We still don’t know how she found out where to go, but she did, and she gave us a hard drive that was supposed to have intel.” Lombardi paused for emphasis. “It didn’t. Had a trojan on it. Bricked our central servers. We’re still not sure what she managed to get.”

Chase almost choked on his linguine. All the fuss since he had returned was Julia’s doing? What??

The look on his face garnered sympathy from all sides of the table. “Yeah. It was pretty bad,” Zari offered, “but I think all of us were expecting her to leave before it got to that point.”

For some reason, the idea of Julia doing so didn’t completely surprise him, but the sheer enormity of it… the reputational hit... her career!

The revelation almost felt nightmarish.

Miss Argent has been so bright and eager when they were together, almost annoyingly so. Taking the job in stride, no matter if it was sifting through paperwork or waking up at 5 for reconnaissance. A few habits she could stand to lose? Yes. But still, all the signs had pointed to her succeeding where he had seemingly failed, and for a while he had taken comfort in that fact after she had left him. Except now…

“I… just…” Awkwardly, words failed him, drawing the concerned stares of his newfound friends. Outside, beyond the narrow windows on the high side of the room, he swore the tails of a familiar red coat swished across the panes. A phantom pain ghosted through his head, the moody lighting of the eatery suddenly a bit too bright.

In his mind’s eye, Julia still stood alone in the cluttered backstage of a wrestling hall, confessing to finding another line of work.

Enough.

He balled up his theories and threw them away before they consumed him, all too aware of the eyes on him. Gathering himself, Chase chose his next words carefully, attempting to retake control of the conversation and assuage their worries.

“You didn’t think she was a good operative? Even before all this?” It was perhaps too self-centered to ask, but he didn’t dare betray the other, more blasphemous thoughts threatening to surface otherwise.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that! It’s not that we didn’t think she was smart, anyone could see that! But we could also see she probably wasn’t going to last doing this kind of thing. Sandiego kinda proved it.”

“She was not cut out to be a cop.” Zari stated bluntly, taking a bite of her carbonara. “You either have it or you don’t. She’ll be much happier where she is now.”

“And where exactly is that? Do we know?” Lombardi probed.

“Oxford!” Dobson chimed in, slamming his beer on the table decisively. “Egyptology department. Must have had an impressive CV before all this.”

“Dobson, you’re not supposed to use departmental access for personal business!” Rodriguez said for the second time that night, exasperatedly rubbing her temples.

“Who said it was personal? Chief wanted to know where she ended up.” He shot back. “Don’t come after me! For once, it was for my job.” 

Zari scoffed. “I wish I could quit this job and run off to Oxford,” she muttered into her wineglass.

Dobson chortled. “No you don’t.”

“You would get bored the first week” Rodriguez added, holding back laughter as she considered the prospect. “I’m imagining the first time the students get rowdy-” She drew herself up and pulled her chin to her chest, imitating Zari’s unmistakable monotone. “If this class doesn’t shut the hell up I’m carting all 50 of you off to Sing Sing!”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Zari said, stone cold.

“-Yeah you would.”

“-You WOULD!”

“I can close my eyes and picture it.”

Zari stared off to the side for a moment, wineglass still in her hand. The corner of her lip curled ever so slightly.

“…. Alright maybe you have a point.”

Chase set his own wineglass down, doing his best to politely redirect the conversation. “But when you say she isn’t a cop… I thought Chief had taken a liking to her?”

“Oh, she loved Argent! She was her favorite. But that wasn’t her problem, even before Seattle.” Rodriguez said as she dipped some table bread into a saucer of olive oil.

“I mean—let me put it this way,” Dobson pushed his empty salad plate away from himself, adjusting his seat and propping his elbows on the table. “In criminal justice, you get a lot of students that can perform well, right? They pass their exams, they’re summa cum laude, they do well in PT, all that. But— oh, graci.”

At that moment, a waiter came and placed a bowl of steaming bigoli in salsa in front of him. Dobson quickly plucked his salad fork off his retreating empty plate and stirred his pasta before continuing. “But the thing is, there’s no test for the real deal. And until someone actually gets out there to face down some ugly, they have no idea. Lot of times? They fold under real pressure. That’s why she didn’t want to go after Sandiego, in my opinion at least.” He shrugged. “Just didn’t have the stomach.”

Zari leaned in, suddenly having something to add. “You know, back when I worked with protection dogs, we actually had a name for that. You could always train the dogs to bite the sleeve, but you can tell with most of them it’s just a game.” She gestured toward the group. “What you really are looking for is if the dog will bite for real. If its handler is being threatened, and when it’s a real perp kicking and yelling.”

She once more leaned back in her chair. “We call that being ‘civil’. If the dog has what it takes. And Argent? I don’t think she was ever civil.”

Rodriguez set her fork down. “Ok, see? That’s why you’re Chief’s favorite. Couldn’t put it better myself.”

Zari nodded, accepting the compliment with her usual confidence. “Now. Chase over here?”

Chase’s eyes widened, not expecting the conversation to concern him again. She pointed with an open palm, “He’s civil. I can tell. You should have seen him book it after that boat. Breath of fresh air.”

“Ooooh a compliment from Zari? Somebody pinch me.” Dobson jabbed, smirking conspiratorially at her.

“You heard me! You see Argent out there doing that?”

“Hell no!”

“Ok, then. I’m right.” Zari said matter-of-factly. “As usual.”

Chase opened his mouth partially, but no words came. A strange, conflicted feeling swirled in his chest, threatening to bubble over. The image of Sandiego standing over him, calmly raising her hands and ceding the crate to him played back in his mind. The casual way she had looked at him, before slipping away, quiet as a ghost, struck him oddly once again.

She could have fought. She could have been faster. And yet…

Deep down, it wasn’t his skill… was it?

A harsh slap on the back brought him out of his reverie. “Right, Devineaux?” Zari side-eyed him expectantly, a confident smirk on her face. In response, Chase laughed, a bit too forcefully.

“Hahaha…. You know me… Woof.”

Despite his inner turmoil, that seemed to get a good laugh from the rest of the table.

------ << O >> -------

The sun had finally set over the Venetian rooftops, casting the streets outside in a dark blue haze. In the restaurant, only three agents remained; Chase had tagged along with the rest of the group, all strolling back to their hotel a few blocks away, leaving only Zari, Dobson, and Rodriguez. By now, the dinner rush had subsided, leaving only a steady stream of locals at the bar and fellow lingering diners. The group had politely moved from the large table to a smaller one outside, if not only to stare out at the canal and watch marine traffic troll by. A warm breeze floated over the water and fluttered their tablecloth, which now contained a second bottle of wine and empty desert plates.

Zari took a long drag on a cigarette— the other benefit of being outside.  “…I think he’ll stay. Chief will get over it, he’ll straighten up, it’ll all work out. He has his issues, but I think he can work through them. Eventually. Today was actually a good example.”

Dobson spoke up. “I didn’t mention it at the table, but I did hear what he did to get fired from Interpol. Ran off and got stranded in the Canary Islands. He’s better than Argent, obviously, but I wouldn’t be so sure with him and Chief.”

Zari shrugged. “He’s a little bit of a clown, I’ll admit, but that probably happened because Chief’s an asshole. Bumping him back to France and assigning him to records like that? After an injury from her own bullshit, no less? I’d act up too.” Zari turned to point at Rodriguez. “And that’s why I can’t be trusted at Oxford.”

Rodreiguez chortled into her glass of water. “Eh. I actually like him ok. So what if he’s a little crazy? So is half this outfit. It’s not like we all ended up here by minding our business.” She eyed Dobson, a little too knowingly. “Right, Dobs?”

Sensing the conversation’s potentially dangerous change in tack, Dobson course corrected. “Well! Erm.. yes. Maybe Zari does have a point.”

Zari could only smirk back at him, as did Rodriguez. He cleared his throat.

“Speaking of whom…. How is…?”

To that, she shook her head. “Oh no, she’s still not over it. You should have seen her lay into Devineaux this morning. Taking it out on him.”

“Oof. Really?”

“Yeah. I read his report, Perp smashed in the roof of his car in Mexico. She blamed him for it. Then some accident in America, too. I think.” She paused, not able to recall the exact wording. Something about a banana?

She shook her head. That couldn’t be right— some things were too strange even for Devineaux.

Consistently losing cars was an expensive character flaw, to be sure; he’d have to be much more careful. But it’s not like any of them hadn’t dinged up a ride tailing VILE ops before. It came with the territory.

Rodriguez pointed an open palm at Zari. “Why do you think she’s so taken with Argent? We all saw her get attached to Sandiego, couldn’t she see it too?”

“Oh that’s easy. Argent was an optimist. Considerate, bright…” Zari stared into the smoldering end of her cig. “You know. Not a jaded asshole like the rest of us.”

“-but she wonders why all of us are like that.”

“Exactly. Argent was smarter than all of us. She got out before it was too late.”

Dobson let out a dry chuckle. “Fly far away, little bird. Be free!”

Zari tapped a nugget of ash into the tray their waiter had brought out when they had relocated. “Take it from someone who’s worked with Chief for a decade. And you both know I have a lot of respect for her.” She took a short puff, then stopped short to add, “But she has no idea why the Julias of the world never stick around.”

“Have you ever tried explaining it to her?” Rodriguez chirped.

Zari sputtered mid-drag at the suggestion, a puff of smoke punctuating every word. “While she’s signing my paychecks?? Hell no!”

Both compatriots wheezed with laughter, with Dobson playfully knocking into Rodriguez at the mere thought.

“I’m-” Dobson finally pulled himself together. “I don’t know, Zari. You think…” For the first time, he faltered mid-sentence. Zari stared across the table expectantly, as did Rodriguez. Across the canal, the breeze picked up, sending ripples across the still water. Sensing the awkward pause, Dobson forged ahead. He leaned in ever so slightly, his voice softer than before.

“You think Chief’s losing her touch?”

Zari sighed, turning her attention toward the horizon. Beside him, Rodriguez quickly sobered.

“I don’t know.” Zari said, before the silence could weigh too heavy. “Sometimes she seems just as with it as she was when I first met her. Other times… I wonder.” She took one long, last drag on the cig, the tiny embers glowing brightly as they devoured their way toward the filter.

“It’s not her age— I hope I look that good in 20 years— it’s how long she’s been doing it.” She continued. “I think she might finally be starting to run out of patience for it all. I mean it’s a miracle that anyone’s lasted this long, but before? She’d be alright with waiting around for leads. She used to let them come to her, or wait for perps to show themselves. They always do, eventually. Now? When she thinks she’s got something on VILE, it’s like you can see her change. Like she’ll do anything to lock it down, consequences be damned.” In her hand, the lit end of tobacco burned dimmer and dimmer, then finally went out in a wisp of smoke.

“When I see that…it scares me a little.”

Zari finally glanced over at her two dining companions again. “You weren’t there. But Devineaux? She dragged him into this because he saw Sandiego once. And Argent was even worse. She was just collateral.” She said, carefully leaving out how exactly Julia had managed to slip past both her and Bronson that evening through sheer dumb luck. Maybe she was the one getting old.

Dobson spoke up. “Now that is insane. Can’t even say how many fruitless VILE cases I got sent after at the agency before she came to me.”

Rodriguez shook her head. “Damn. Even if she liked her towards the end, I could never figure out what made Chief pick Argent to start with. I guess she didn’t.”

“Yeah, no wonder!”

Zari nodded. “Mmmhmm. Then there’s Stockholm. I almost can’t blame Argent for all her mess. She couldn’t have done half of that if Chief wasn’t enabling it. We were on target when she pulled us away to go save her, and then to make matters worse, Sandiego gets spooked and almost kills herself in the woods. Nobody won that day.” She flicked her spent butt onto the ash tray with a ping! “Sloppy.”

“I thought the woman the street unit tailed was a decoy?”

“Decoy with a connection to Sandiego.” Zari corrected, turning her attention to Dobson. “Scoop her up and use her as a bargaining chip. Not to mention we could have grilled her for information. She had to have known something. Instead we had to drop her to go sprinting across town and almost had a dead key suspect.”

Rodriguez inhaled through her teeth and poured herself another glass of wine from their dwindling bottle.  “Thank god Sandiego’s not a violent perp. At least directly. That would have turned ugly reaaaal fast.”

Zari scoffed and drew herself up in her chair. Maybe she wouldn’t spare Chief’s feelings for once— decade of working relations or not.

“We didn’t know that at the time.” Zari said slowly. “She let the softest greenhorn agent I’ve ever seen just walk out and make contact with a serial felon. By. herself.” She paused to let that sink in before continuing.

“It took twelve whole minutes to get to her once Chief sounded the alarm. She could have been killed.”

Dobson straightened up, the assertion triggering something in his bearing. “You think that’s bad? What about her ambushing Chief in the Starbucks? I nearly shit bricks when she walked in that morning and told me what happened!”

Zari waved her hand dismissively. “Her I wouldn’t be as worried about. She could take Sandiego if she tried something, believe me. She wants to be famous? Chief would have put her on the news,” she spat.

Rodriguez fixed Zari in the eye with rare seriousness. “Yeah, but still. You show up with enough people… the right tools… the right angle…. doesn’t matter how good you are.”

Zari itched for a second cigarette. Everyone who’d spent long enough with Chief knew she didn’t carry anymore, especially not around the city. She had some kind of strange aversion to it that she’d acquired somewhere along the line, and no amount of arguing from Zari or anyone else could convince her otherwise. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if Sandiego decided she didn’t feel the same.

Life without Chief.

Zari couldn’t begin to imagine ACME without her. She was its first and only director; its Prometheus, and everything after simply fell into place around her. She knew firsthand that agents weren’t loyal to ACME so much as they were to Tamara Frasier— every single one hand-picked and ready to die on her hill. So many years given to her, and Zari couldn’t say she way any different. She knew that any one of them could go down in this line of work and things would keep ticking along for the most part. An unfortunate few already had. But Chief…

If she went, ACME almost certainly would die with her. Few things truly frightened Zari, but that was one of them.

“And now Sandiego has our entire central database.”

Complete silence. Zari gazed back out at the water, Venice now swallowed entirely by darkness save for the canal lights and the dim incandescent bulbs strung under the restaurant awning. Along the Canal Grande, the silhouette of a lone motorboat puttered along the opposite row of buildings, sending ripples crescendoing across the water. A wave of tiredness suddenly crept up on her.

Finally, she spoke. “We don’t know that for sure. Forensics is still going over the logs. She might not have gotten much.” The words rang hollow, even to her. Names. Dossiers. Agency office locations. Home addresses. Family members. Potentially in the hands of the shadowy masters who ran VILE, or whoever would sell to them. An unseasonably cold breeze began to billow in off the pitch-black water, sending a chill through the three diners.

Dobson plucked his blazer off the back of his chair and started feeding his arms through the sleeves, suddenly antsy of the open, black space surrounding them.

“Let’s hope so.”

From inside, their waiter finally stepped out of the bar and onto the pavement, no doubt waiting for such a signal. Zari straightened herself back up. This was her job, as usual.

“Il conto, per favore.” She asked, sending him back inside toward the register. All three of them stood up to stretch out their stiff limbs. Zari and Rodriguez pulled on their own coats while Dobson leaned a hip against the wrought iron railings of the patio.

“Maybe it was a blessing that Devineaux fooled around out of town for a while. If what happened to him is any indication of what could happen… god help us.”

Zari sighed; another unpleasant memory hauled to the surface. “I still can’t believe Chief didn’t move him after he was captured. It doesn’t matter that she never made him a full agent before. Getting compromised is getting compromised.” Zari pinched the bridge of her nose. “I have to talk with her about him. Argent or no, I don’t think she understands-“

“Waitwaitwait-!“ Rodriguez sputtered. “Devineaux got his name and address leaked, was attacked in his home, and she didn’t move him?!”

“Nope.” Zari said, enunciating the e with a pop. “Apparently intelligence said it’s low risk, which of course means it’s fine.” She rolled her eyes. “Plus she’s under the impression that he can handle himself. You know. The way he did the first time it happened.”

Both companions let out sympathetic groans, just as the waiter came back with their check.

“Graci.”  Zari thanked him, glancing over the little white stub to assess the damage. Despite the previous subject matter, Zari cracked a wan smile.

“Dobson you’re catching this one, right?”

“You wish!” He said, while he and Rodriguez offered up credit cards.

A few minutes later, all paid up, the three of them stepped out of the wrought iron gate and onto the canal sidewalk, more than ready to walk the few blocks back to their hotel. With the awning gone, Zari was struck by just how large the moon was, hanging dim and low in the sky just over the rooftops.  She just wished she was in a better state of mind to enjoy it. She had never been a nervous agent—paranoia had a tendency to make one sloppy; but the way the buildings threw odd shadows around them in the moonlight didn’t help to shake the subject of their conversation away.

There was a reason they had agreed to leave in groups.

“If it’s as bad as I think it is… I sure hope Oxford has good security.”

Dobson glanced back at her. “Well, like I said, Chief did want me keeping tabs on Argent. We can’t do much since she’s not an operative anymore, but we put in some requests to Oxfordshire Traffic Authority, so we do pick her up on cams every now and then.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“You and me both. I hope for her sake she finds out that she is civil. Because if something does happen, it’s going to take us a hell of a lot longer than twelve minutes to come running.”  

The three of them stood beside the canal in silence for a few moments, taking in the low-hanging moon.

“Well, maybe she’ll pull through; show whoever it is that she’s a little monster. You never know!”

Dobson and Zari both turned to eye Rodriguez as she continued to admire the sky before she felt eyes on her. She sighed, defeated.

“Yeah, I don’t feel good about it either.”

------ << O >> -------

The narrow hallways of Palazzo de Vecchio were dark and silent by the time Zari arrived. She and Devineaux had briefly checked in that morning, walking off their jet and throwing their bags onto a suitcase stand before turning right back around and meeting with the mask exhibit managers. ACME had managed to book most of the team’s rooms at the same hotel-- as was usually the case when buying at the last minute— but what was unusual was how the two of them had managed to land in a “party” suite, with several bedrooms feeding into a common area. Like any government-funded agency, ACME was loathe to spend money where it wasn’t necessary, however, Zari supposed Venice in the middle of tourist season left very little wiggle room for strictly professional accommodations. Nothing a seasoned agent wasn’t used to at this point.

Rodriguez and Dobson were unfortunately not their roommates, who had sleepily bid her farewell at the hotel lobby. Instead, Bronson and Morgenstern’s suitcases lined the hall, already having put themselves to bed hours ago. Guiding the room’s heavy outer door to close as gently as possible, Zari headed for her own suitcase, already assessing the best way to slip into the bedroom Morgenstern had chosen without waking her.

She reached down to pull open the zipper and pluck out a change of clothes when movement caught her eye. Looking up, she scanned the hallway for the cause of the offending shadow, when her eyes caught the sliding glass door that led outside. Just beyond the threshold, Chase Devineaux sat awake at the foot of a chaise chair on the suite’s narrow balcony, with his back toward the door and his head staring out over the glow of the city.

Zari furrowed her brow. Devineaux had struck her as uncharacteristically distracted that evening, though she had just assumed it was all the new people and the busy restaurant. She had tried to get him to loosen up a bit, which seemed to have worked a little, but for a man like him, he’d seemed awfully hesitant to take the opportunity to talk about himself throughout the evening. He might as well have announced he was grievously ill.

She squinted. Studying his hands through the glass, he certainly didn’t appear to have any cigarettes of his own (though he did seem like the type), which meant the only reason he was outside was almost certainly to stew.

She closed her eyes, knowing she was about to lose a mental battle with herself. The wine and painkillers had certainly helped dull the pain from the goose-egg she had received that morning, but now that she was going on 18 hours of no sleep, it was starting to flare up again.  She opened them briefly to glance up at the wall clock, which read out a cheerful 1:38 AM. God.

Chase Devineaux was a smalltime cop with something to prove and a penchant for overcompensation. She was overly familiar with the type, if her initial impression of him in France was any indication-- the dangers of being a woman in law enforcement. The two of them probably wouldn’t even stay together for very long, especially since he’d managed to pull through on the masks. There were certainly reasons he had been thrown at her, and now that he’d seemingly shaped up under her supervision, Chief would no doubt toss him at some other problem alone, and then she and Bronson would probably get pulled back to Seattle. She couldn’t exactly say Chief was incorrect in what she had said when they had seen him out of the hospital in Poiters— guys like Devineaux did land on their feet, even if it was usually because they had no other choice.

But even so…

She could see him in the parking garage, floundering around beside a totaled car after a long night; moments before she had knocked him out to be brought before the Chief. Remembered him shrinking back as Chief berated him for not performing to ACME standards. Saw his ID photo on a crime report detailing a 112 call and a hospital stay. And though she hadn’t been there to witness it, she could just picture him in some cheap European apartment, holding a bag of ice against the big stupid bruise on the side of his head, just as he described it to her; the identical twin of the one forming on her own.  Watching the door for intruders that may or may not feel like finishing the job. Chewed up and spit out.

She reached into her pocket for her lighter and a squashed pack of Camel Blues and gently slid open the door to the balcony.

“Mind if I join you out here?”

The sound of the door gliding along its rickety track seemed to startle Chase out of his reverie, flinching and whipping around to see who was behind him.

“Sorry. Should have knocked first.”

Scrambling to compose himself, Chase fixed his eyes back toward the rooftops. “Agent Zari, it is no problem! I was just, uh…” he struggled to come up with an excuse, like a teenager caught out past bedtime. It wasn’t lost on her— it was as if she didn’t just come back from drinking with people that had to work tomorrow. What was he so worried about?

Maybe this conversation was the right call.

She lowered herself onto the plastic chair beside him, plucking one stick from the box and setting the rest down on the rickety glass table that stood between them. “Stayed a little too late catching up with the crew. Guess I’m not quite ready to go to bed.” A bold lie, but it’s not like he was going to call her on it.

Zari clicked her lighter and lit up, the smell of burnt tobacco immediately wafting through the balcony. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Chase impulsively snake two fingers into his breast pocket, only to come up empty. Failing to find something there, he instead settled on wringing both hands in his lap.

“Nice night out. I like the moon.” She said, blowing smoke into the night air. “Must be some special weather thing.”

“Hmm? Oh! Yes. The moon,” Devineaux said distractedly, “it is very big.”

“I take it that’s not why you’re out here.”

Immediately, his shoulders drooped, caught out in a difficult question with no stomach for misdirection. For a secret agent, Devineaux was a terrible bullshitter.

“I thought you were pretty quiet tonight. Don’t tell me you’re shy.” She prompted, doing her best to sound casual and tease out an answer.

In return, he seemed to give in rather easily. He sighed, “I have been… pondering what everyone said tonight. About Julia. And myself.”

She lifted an eyebrow. Not totally what she was expecting, but not surprising. “Anything in particular?”

He held out his hands in a grasping gesture, searching for the right words. “I have just always assumed…” He paused, suddenly unsure of the track he was on.

Zari closed her eyes. “Go on.”

He relented once more. “…Chief has always like Julia before me. I wonder why she even invited me to come back! Even now I am not sure. And now I hear even Julia wasn’t well liked! So where does that leave me?”

“Well, I think I’m glad you’re here. Everyone seemed to like you tonight,” she said noncommittally, blowing a ring of smoke into the night air.

“Agent Zari, please, you do not need to spare my feelings.” He said gently, sparing her a glance. “I know now I am only here because Julia was on her way out. I was not Chief’s first pick, even if I do bite like you say I do.” He sighed, doing his damndest to sound flippant. “It is like you said today; I need not take these things so personally. She does not like me… and that is alright! Really.”

Zari braced herself, knowing what she was about to say could have lethally annoying consequences if she was reading the man in front of her wrong, especially if Chief didn’t plan on splitting him off sometime soon. A problem for future Zari, she supposed. She searched for a safe place to set her cig down, only to find the table without an ash tray.

Damn it. She set it on the glass, resigning herself to clean up the mess in the morning.

“Listen… Chase. Can I call you that?”

“Of course,” he said, surprised at the question, but attentive all the same.

“I’ve worked with Chief long enough to know how she thinks, and she is my good friend; but she’s also my boss. And I think she’s being too hard on you.”  

Chase, understandably, was instantly taken aback. “But-”

Zari didn’t let him finish. “Sometimes, she has high expectations because ACME means a lot to her, but setbacks happen to every agent. You haven’t even been here… what. Three months? Collectively, at least.”

Chase looked askance, defeated. “I know. I am-”

“-You’ve been through a lot in ACME. We’ve all had to time adjust to it because it’s not that old of an org. But you didn’t even get fitted for a suit before she started throwing you at problems.” She started ticking items off on her hand.

“You’ve been asked to switch agencies with no warning. You have had no formal training and have had to pick things up as you go along. You survived a break-in and a kidnapping because we involved you in what we do.” She paused, fixing him in her gaze.

“You’ve been in the hospital. That’s quite a gauntlet for one person to go through.”

Chase opened his mouth, then closed it. For the second time that day, he actually stopped and considered, seemingly turning the words over in his head. She let him. She picked up her cig again, shaking the pile of ash that had accumulated underneath the lit end. She just hoped she wouldn’t find any on her blouse in the morning.

“Perhaps... that is a lot for someone.” He mumbled, deep in thought, bringing his hand up to rub his temple as he did so.

“I wasn’t kidding when I asked you how you were doing earlier today. I wasn’t…” She paused, once again gauging exactly how much criticism to let slip. “…I wasn’t a fan of how that was handled. You deserved more than just getting dumped back at Interpol.”

At that, something within Chase seemed to shift— some wall that he had put up came down, if only for a little while. He still didn’t meet her gaze, but he did have more to say.

“When I was finally well, it was difficult for me to go back to work. Chief demoted me from Inspector to a file clerk in my absence. I’m still not sure why. Perhaps it was to teach me a lesson, I don’t know.” He studied the cracks in the tile at his feet.

“It was difficult for me to continue living in Poitiers like that. Not even being able to talk to ACME anymore. Knowing the people who had taken me were still out there and I could do nothing about it.” He finally looked back at her, as if to confess. “I realize what I did is probably no secret to you.”

“I heard enough.”

Chase bowed his head in resignation. He hadn’t been chastised for his fuckup, considering it wasn’t really official ACME business, but she supposed the guilt was there all the same.

“You think you’re the first agent to take things into their own hands?” She chuckled, thinking back to her company at dinner. “Trust me, you aren’t.”

Chase snapped up to look at her like a deer in the headlights, clearly not expecting that response. A good sign, she hoped.

“Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but just think about what this agency does; no one in this outfit is by the book. What your real problem is is that you don’t know how to get away with it yet.”

She pulled herself up, about to attempt to put into words what usually came naturally to those that made it as far as he did.

“It’s a fine line to walk— curiosity will get you in the door, but it’ll put you in the morgue just as fast. Our work is far more dangerous than regular agency agenda, so what you need to be is careful.” She turned to fix him in the eye, only to find him staring back just as intently, hanging on every word.

Assured, she continued, gesturing with her hands in her lap as she went. “We work alone most of the time. There’s no local office down the road, there’s no backup unless you’re lucky, and there’s no calling local law enforcement unless it’s an active crime scene. If you get in trouble, help might not ever get there. I don’t like that it’s like that, but that’s the way it is a lot of the time, and that’s why it’s important to have each other’s backs and not make avoidable mistakes. Chief can tolerate failure…”

At least for now, Zari thought, “…but you need to make sure you’re always doing the most to evaluate risk. Weigh your options before you call your shot. Or at least make it less obvious. Double check your sources. Observe first.” She side-eyed him.

“Keep one eye on the road.”

That last point she regretted, watching him flinch almost imperceptibly at the reminder, but saying nothing. She sighed, reeling herself back to her initial point.

“But Chase. The thing is… I can sit here and yap about how you should do your job all night. Maybe you’ll agree with me, maybe you won’t. But I’m not you. I didn’t get dragged into this. I didn’t land in the hospital. And I most certainly didn’t get put in the corner and left to rot.”

“And if that were me?” She leaned forward, needing for her words to sink in.

“I would have done the exact same thing. Consequences be damned. No agent deserves to get left behind like that, especially after what happened.”

“But…I was wrong.” He said quietly, a faraway look in his eyes, unfocused.

“Doesn’t matter.” Zari fired back matter-of-factly. “We need to look out for each other. And I don’t think ACME’s doing a very good job of looking after you.”

She leaned back again. “The thing is…I don’t know how much I can do about it. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow or next week, but I have a feeling Chief might throw you back out soon, without me. I’ll try to get you in somewhere better, now that Argent’s gone, but I don’t know what will happen.”

She turned to him. “But that’s how I feel, if it’s worth anything to you.”

After a moment of silence, Devineaux finally responded. “It is worth something to me, Zari, Thank you. I will confess there was a lot on my mind this evening, but I enjoyed meeting everyone! When I work, it is easy to think ACME is just myself and Chief. But tonight I was reminded that there are many of us, all grappling with the same things.”

He thought a moment before continuing, “I suppose it has just been a while since I felt… welcome. By coworkers. And I do not take that for granted.”  

“…Glad to do it.”

For a moment, the two of them looked at each other in a comfortable silence. Zari leaned back in her chair, and Chase casually leaned over, elbows resting on his knees. Open.

Between them smoke wafted freely, up and away into the moonlit sky.

Chase looked like he had a burning question, his mouth cracking slightly as he looked earnestly on at her. Zari could see wheels turning behind his eyes.

“Zari, before she left, was Miss Argent… happy at ACME? Do you think she enjoyed being an agent?”

Zari raised an eyebrow. Was that really what this was all about? She didn’t buy it, but he looked at her all the same, eyes wide, waiting earnestly for an answer.

Alright. Fat chance of Argent ever coming back, anyway, so the risk of anything negative getting back to her was low. The corner of her mouth curled up into a faint smile. “Well, I guess I’ll do my best to answer that.”

“I think she was your typical new agent. She did the things we all did when we were that green; and by that I mean she thought she knew everything.” She chuckled, “Dobson was right, she was smart! She picked things up fast. But maybe was a little too smart for her own good. She always had a theory prepared for everything that happened with Sandiego, of course, worthy of any defense attorney. Was always trying to impress everyone with that Liberal Arts degree, even if nobody asked. And no matter what we were supposed to be doing, she always somehow managed to weasel away from me to go get into trouble.” Zari gestured with her cig, “I didn’t mention it before, but there was this op in Milan that gave me heartburn.

It was some high fashion nonsense. The target was some artifacts on loan that were going to be onstage during a show, and she and I got rerouted there. Granted, I wasn’t expecting too much from her, being so green and all, so I told her to keep an eye on the show while I went backstage to look for the suspects.”

She whipped back to him, to make sure he was keeping up. “Mind you, all we had to do was keep an eye on the goods, and then apprehend Sandiego and any of her flunkies. I know that’s been easier said than done the past few months, but at the time, it was simple enough. Nothing too complicated!”

She continued. “Anyway, I end up finding Sandiego down in some hallway, but she gives me the slip and I can’t find her again. So I figure she’s going to go for the artifacts and go back into the showroom to check in with Argent, but then she’s nowhere to be found.”  

She furrowed her brow and gave her gesturing hands a hard stare, aware that she was now excising an old grievance to herself as well as Chase. “Next thing I know, I look up, and she’s fucking…. onstage! Next to Sandiego!”

Chase couldn’t contain himself at this, wheezing but doing his best to keep it down for their sleeping compatriots inside. “Quoi? How??”

“I don’t know! It was always something with her! I swear! It always made my life more complicated!” Zari said exasperatedly, throwing her arms out akimbo. “The worst thing is it somehow resulted in her getting the expensive-ass dresses back, so it enabled her. And then Sandiego got away after she did nothing, so we were right back at square one!”

“Of course she got away! What else would happen?” He laughed back, swiping loose hairs away from his face.

“I think… I don’t know. She was always enthusiastic about analysis and research. Always wanting to dig deeper and find out more, which I admit was admirable! I shouldn’t give her shit for that; I know some people that could stand to have a little more of that enthusiasm.”  She finally calmed herself, trying to steer the conversation back to her initial point.

“But, like I said… being a cop is more than that, and we both know it. I think she honestly was avoiding a lot of that other half, and Chief sort of let her. Maybe because she knew how young Argent was and didn’t want to quash her. ACME is rough on people, as you know.” It was Zari’s turn to look out on the skyline.

“But you can’t avoid that part forever. Sooner or later, you have to face the music. And that’s when I think Argent stopped being happy.”

Devineaux silently digested this information, humming in acknowledgement, though his mask of nonchalance seemed to slip even further. Despite her earlier doubt, the subject of Argent genuinely seemed to eat at him.

“She ever do that with you? Stumble into crazy nonsense like that?” she prodded, banking on Julia to have done something equally wild back in France, hoping to pull him out of his funk. Instead, the corners of his mouth turned down even further.

“Well…. I cannot say exactly…”  He trailed off, seemingly struggling for words. “She always… kept her nose down back at Interpol, actually. I suppose there’s not much to say. She was always rather studious with me.”

Damn. She really needed to work on her bedside manner. Did she have anything else?

Well…

Zari could sense that she was about to make the situation worse long before the words left her mouth, but her lack of sleep and sobriety seemed to finally be catching up to her. The little thought that had been knawing away at her brain all evening was finally forcing its way to the surface, ready to pry open a can of worms that would almost certainly extend this conversation long into the night.

“I will admit though, there was one thing about Argent that just... rubbed me the wrong way. And it wasn’t the grad student shenanigans”

Devineaux stared at her. “What exactly do you mean?”

Zari quietly adjusted herself. “Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t say it. I don’t want to speak badly of her; she was still your partner.”

The universe was giving her an out.  

“What was it?”

Damn it.

She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Chase… all that time she spent running defense for Sandiego, and it never once bothered her that she put you in the hospital.”

Chase started, clearly not expecting that one. He floundered for words, the wheels in his head spinning in place all too clearly. “I... she did not… I am sure she was merely thinking of the case.” He finally sputtered.

Zari stood firm, the same way she’d give a difficult report to Chief. “Maybe. But it certainly bothered me. I tried reminding her of it a few times, but… it never seemed to stick. Sure, a lot of it maybe was detachment, because I don’t think rookies really get it at first—it’s all a game to them until they get their first real scare.”

She sighed. “But I don’t know. It’s one thing to be a rookie, but it’s another thing to not stand up for your own people. Like I said, this job is hard enough without dealing with players on your own team running interference— you need to care about your fellow agents, even if you don’t see eye to eye, because nobody else is going to! And if Argent wasn’t willing to do that...” She sighed.

“She left after she finally got a taste of reality. She was the one that got hurt, and then suddenly it was too much.”

The two of them sat in silence once again, Zari’s words stinging the air. Beside her, she could hear Chase breathing heavy, head sinking down onto his hands with elbows still propped on his knees.

He mumbled into the fingers splayed against his face, trying to scrub the discomfort away. “I think, perhaps, that is why I am outside tonight. I admit that I feel guilty about Miss Argent. Terribly so, in fact.”

“Guilty? Why?”

“I think I was… how do you say it…” He struggled for the right English word.

“An asshole?” She ventured.

“…Yes.”

Zari sniffed. “Welcome to the club. I certainly don’t get paid to be nice while I’m on the clock.”

“Non. It’s one thing to be coarse with criminals. It is another to be rude to one’s partner.” He looked through tented fingers. “The last day I was with her… I was too harsh with her. Told her to stop thinking so much about Carmen Sandiego’s innocence, and about her little historical asides-- to get her mind back on the hunt. I thought she had been without me long enough that she would be long past doing those things.”

He sighed.

“I did not realize what had happened with her at the time. I fear it is my fault she was finally pushed away for good. I know that we were equals under ACME, but I have always thought about how Interpol assigned her to me first. It was my job to encourage her to be the best she could be. To support her! Not to put her down.”

Zari opened her mouth to interject, but Chase gently raised a hand. This time, it was his turn to keep going, and, for once, she let him.

“You say what I did was a lot to go through, but I have been a policeman for many years! Miss Argent was a policeman for two weeks. But look at how much she excelled despite that! She could have been…well… I could not have done that, I do not think.” He rested his chin on his hands, eyes glued to the tile floor, deep in thought.

“…I sometimes wonder if her theory about Miss Sandiego was not entirely out of love for the game. But a strike against me. I was never behind her when she first proposed it to me, and I wonder what would have happened had I heard her out. No matter what Carmen Sandiego had done, perhaps she would not be so obstinate to changing her mind if she knew she was being listened. Respected. If I had better prepared her for this life.”

He raised his eyes once again, staring at a thousand yards. “If she did not stand by me… perhaps it was because I never stood by her.”

Zari took a moment to ponder his words. She took a long drag of smoke, holding it in her lungs while she thought. From what she could recall from her days with Julia, the poor frenchman was giving himself far too much credit. Argent had been beyond salvation long after he had left. But the conversation on the restaurant patio weighted on her still, fresh in her mind. Looming.

She finally exhaled. “Ok then. You think you acted like that? Then fix it.”

Chase snapped up to look at her like she had just grown a second head. “But… she is gone, Miss Zari! It is too late!”

Zari shrugged. “Don’t just mope about it. If you think you were an ass, you know where she works. Go call her! Or visit her. Say sorry.”

He shook his head, dismayed at the suggestion. “Oh, I doubt Miss Argent would enjoy hearing from me.” He looked down at his feet, resting his forehead on his hands. “Perhaps it is best to just… let her go. If she really is happier where she is now than she was here, then maybe I should allow her to leave it all behind.”

“Chase.”

“Mmm-?”

“Life… this life— is too unpredictable to live with regrets. You can do what you want, but if it were me who was sad about Argent, then I would go talk to her.” She glanced away.  

“I mean, I’ll be honest; I really am not. Sad, I mean. Like I said, this job isn’t suitable for everyone. The sooner somebody can figure that out, the better. But if I was? I’d go over there and try to work it out. She might appreciate hearing that from you.”

She gestured flippantly, cigarette in hand. “And if she gets mad and kicks you out, then she kicks you out! At least you’ll know there was nothing unsaid between you.”

Chase winced at this, but if he somehow gleaned she had personal experience doing something like that, he didn’t voice it. Small blessings. She broke her gaze, eyeing her cig once more. It was only half-finished, but Zari could all but taste the fatigue threatening to overtake her. She stubbed it out on the glass, next to the rest of her soot. Mess to be cleaned tomorrow; if she could remember. Standing up, she absentmindedly brushed off her clothes, hoping once again she would find no grey streaks in the morning, when she had a few more hours of sleep and a few less glasses of wine in her. 

Time to wrap this up.

“Listen. If you really want to not be an asshole, maybe think about learning to follow someone else’s lead for a change.”

Chase looked down, catching her meaning. Maybe he wasn’t hopeless after all.

“I understand, Zari. You are the senior agent, not me. I will be sure to follow orders from you from now on. And I apologize if I was rude to you when we met.”

Zari looked sympathetically at him. “Well, that’s not quite what I mean. I don’t work with soldiers. I work with fellow professionals.” Another dangerous thing to say to him, but she didn’t care at this point. If this didn’t stick, it wouldn’t even matter for long.

 “What I mean is, when we’re out in the field, if you make the effort to listen to me, I’ll listen to you. Just like right now.” She raised an eyebrow and fixed him in the eye, making sure this was landing for him. 

“Think you can do that?”

Once again, the almost-imperceptible pause from Devineaux. For a moment, something behind his eyes churned, yet unspoken. It wasn’t pride— for some reason Zari could tell— but something made him hesitate, brief as it was. Not Julia. Not herself. Something their conversation hadn’t yet mended.

But when Chase finally met her eyes again, it was suddenly gone, as quickly as it had come.

“Yes, I can do that. And…thank you, Zari. For listening to me.”

“Of course.”

She turned to leave, but before she could put a hand on the door to slide it open, Devineaux shot one more question at her.

“I never got a chance to ask you, how is your head?”

“I’ll be honest, I feel like garbage.”

“..Ah.”

She continued, “Somebody got me on the back of the head earlier. Never saw who it was, but I assume it was one of Sandiego’s goons.”

For the first time that night, it was her turn to let a wall down. “…Chief always worries too much about me. She would have sent me running across town to go sit in a waiting room for hours if I said something, all just to say I need a bag of ice and a nap. Been through way worse.”

She was also supposed to be putting him on the straight and narrow, not getting caught off-guard by some freak in a mask. The last thing she needed was for Chief to think she was going soft, especially now. Not with everything going on.

“That sounds like a lot for one person. Perhaps… you should take your own advice, Agent Zari.”

At that, Zari cracked a wan smile, eyebrows shooting up. “That… I probably should. Good night Devineaux,”

“Good night.”

And with that, she slowly about-faced and shut the door, retreating into the darkness of the room.

------ << O >> -------

Tomorrow, when she woke up embarrassingly late with a splitting headache— caused by booze or Carmen-goon or both— she’d find some extra-strength Tylenols on the room’s lowboy and her roommates quietly milling about the kitchen on a pen-call with Chief. Though it pained her to be up, Zari leaned against the door and listened to them swear up and down that they would need an extra day in the city.

They couldn’t possibly fly back to the US just yet, Chase argued. There was evidence to sweep for and suspects to interrogate. And Zari? Well, she woke up early and was out scouting for food! Being the most responsible of the bunch, since everyone else had been celebrating too much to think of hitting the markets before they closed. And wouldn’t you know today was a Sunday?

Her pen? Charging.

What ever would they do without her!

Through the bump on her head, an unbidden spark of warmth struck her, watching the three of them locked in a game of persuasion in front of a tiny fridge and bar full of overpriced snacks.

What indeed…

She closed the door, making her way to her side of the room to slowly put herself back together for the day.

What indeed.