Chapter Text
It was only for appearances that you bought a beverage at the Dawn Winery. Your fingers traced the golden rim of the glass, silently willing it to make some melodious noise as you had seen done in the movies. No such song was produced.
You clicked your tongue in disappointment. Bringing the cup to your lips, you tilted your head and allowed the liquid to moisten your throat.
Grape juice, you praised, swiping your tongue across the remnants gathered near your mouth.
An odd choice for a wine tasting event, perhaps, but at first glance, it was one of the few things that could pass as alcohol. You needed to be sharp to carry out your objective tonight.
Scrutinizing eyes swept across the room, searching for a head of crimson among the sea of brunettes and blondes. Your laissez-faire expression made it seem as if simple curiosity was the true purpose behind your actions. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
A woman in twin braids appeared at your side, flagging down the bartender who had just begun to walk elsewhere. She ordered a strong drink that wasn’t on the event menu. The way her eyes darted from person to person made you seem normal in comparison.
“Diluc is going to be here, right?” she whispered into your ear, claiming your attention in the process.
Another maiden hoping to catch the eye of Mondstadt’s most eligible bachelor, you supposed.
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Oh, good.” A nervous laugh escaped her throat. “I hadn’t seen him anywhere around here yet. Late to his own event, isn’t that something?”
You averted your gaze elsewhere and sipped your juice. “He’s a busy man, I’d imagine.”
She ignored your attempt to shake her off by claiming the stool next to yours. Her drink arrived in a short, crystalline glass. From the looks of it, it was a simple whiskey on the rocks.
“Too busy for romance, as well, it seems,” she snorted. After a deep breath, she downed the drink faster than you thought possible. “I’m Donna. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise,” you said, eyeing her with a quirked brow. “You should slow down if your goal is to make an impression on him. I’m sure he’s seen enough drunkards in his days.”
“Ugh, you’re right. Hey! Can I get some water please?”
You ignored her from then on by closing your eyes and drifting off into your own world. The din of the winery blended in a cacophony of eloquent laughter and clinking glasses. A small sigh left your nose and you tried to suppress your growing irritation of having to wait for the esteemed Diluc Ragnvindr to show up to his own wine tasting. You were beginning to understand Donna’s frustrations the longer you bided your time.
It was when you felt the burn of a stare that you finally stirred from your dormant state. Your eyelashes fluttered—maintaining your innocent facade—as you examined the attendees with curiosity akin to a feline. Across the room, a male with hair as dark as the twilight sky set his sights on you and refused to concede.
You tilted your head slightly. He smiled, then roused from his matters with the woman conversing one-sidedly with him. Suddenly, your glass was the most interesting thing in the world.
A faint passing of cologne brought your attention to your right peripheral, where the man now seated himself. His voice was light as he ordered two wine glasses offered from tonight’s selection. You hoped the other wasn’t for you.
“A fine night, isn’t it?”
Perhaps you hadn’t hoped hard enough. A faux attentiveness spread across your features, and the man analyzed your countenance for every possible detail. He seemed to have the disadvantage of missing his right eye. Or perhaps he wore the eyepatch just for fun, which then led to your next question: in this day and age?
You looked to the windows and farther beyond toward the vineyard, blanketed in the silvery beams of the moon. “A fine night indeed. I only hope the temperature hasn’t dropped since nightfall.”
“I hate to disappoint a woman such as alluring as yourself, but I fear the darkness always brings with it a chill you can never seem to shake off.”
“Disappointing.” You licked your teeth briefly. “I didn’t bring a jacket along with me tonight.”
He seemed slightly disheartened that you didn’t seem to catch on to the metaphor behind his words, but his lips quickly uprighted themselves into their previous smirk. It was so subtle that a normal person may not have noticed. That said, you were far from ordinary. It was only because you were so well-versed yourself that you could recognize it in others.
Appearing thoughtful, he slid one of the two glasses toward you. “This is a Brightcrown Cabernet Sauvignon, my favorite discovery of the night. And, so you have a name to attach to this delightful beverage, I am Kaeya Alberich of the Favonius Detective Agency.”
You feigned surprise at his words. You already knew that, of course. If you had to, you could probably name every well-off bastard in this room. He was just another rich boy trying to make a difference using unjust methods beneath the noses of his superiors. From the intel you had gathered on him, he merely joined the agency because it piqued his interest. Kaeya had plenty of funds to rely on without having to lift a finger.
“A detective? How curious.”
“In what way?”
You ignored the wine, reaching for your juice instead. “How do you get anything done with that… vigilante running amok?”
Kaeya erupted into a fit of chuckles. “Ah, the Darknight Hero. Equally my ally as he is my foe.”
“It strikes me as some sort of self-serving bias. What’s so heroic about wearing a cape and parkouring over rooftops at night?”
“It may seem a little strange, but he surely has his reasons,” Kaeya sighed softly. “I personally couldn’t fathom doing such a thing.”
You couldn’t help but eye him from the side. “Not many would say the same about him. Especially in your line of work.”
“Perhaps.” He looked amused at your half-accusation. “So long as it rids our streets of criminals, I don’t see it as an issue. His methods are… unseemly, but he is able to do what we can not. Haven’t you heard of his latest endeavors?”
“Of course I have. It’s all over the news.”
Kaeya subconsciously leaned towards you. “That wretched Fatui gang has done a number in our city. The Darknight Hero has made it clear that those terrorists—” The way he spoke the title was laced with venom. “—are his next target, and I can only hope he succeeds.”
The annoyance you felt was immeasurable. How dare he say those things, in front of you, no less. You were lucky that your glass didn’t shatter with the way you gripped it so intensely.
“Yeah, well, when has he ever let us down?” You brought it to your lips, intending to take a sip and wash the tightness from your throat.
Someone bumped into you from behind, and the contents spilled across your front. The coldness shocked you into silence for a brief moment. You felt your veil slip slightly as anger ran like ice through your veins.
“Oh, shoot, I am so sorry!”
Donna’s hands flew to her mouth when you turned to face her. Kaeya stood up from his seat at the same time you did, hand grazing over your elbow as if to comfort you. The look in your eye gradually diminished until you released your frustrations with a deep breath.
“Do you want me to—”
“No, I got it.” You waved Donna off and pulled yourself away from the detective.
Your back was already turned when Kaeya gave you a puzzled look. For one, what had spilled on you was not wine, rather, it was grape juice. He could recognize the scent anywhere. Secondly, the spill had revealed a peculiar tattoo below your collarbone, stained blood-red beneath the fabric of your cream-colored blouse. His eye never left your back until you disappeared from his line of sight.
Truth be told, you had no idea where the restroom was. The winery had no sort of signs on the walls—or if it did, you had missed them entirely. As you wandered the halls, your feelings got the best of you. Your first mission and archons you were blowing it already. The Fatui provided you with the resources to get things done, yet here you were, sitting idly while the Darknight Hero failed to show up like he was supposed to.
In a fit of rage, you tore the closest bookshelf to you away from the wall. Pages and book spines scattered across the marble floors and echoed throughout the corridor. Your harsh breathing filled your ears as the clatter finally settled down.
A cold breeze blew past your cheek.
“What..?” The word came out as a mere whisper.
Behind the bookshelf you had destroyed was a passageway of stairs. Lights illuminated each step and you could see that at the bottom was a concrete floor. You looked towards each end of the hallway, ensuring no one had come to investigate the commotion, and quickly took the opportunity to slip through the entryway.
The faint sound of whirring became more apparent the farther down you descended. Your right hand brushed against the cobble-stone wall as an instinct, and your other was occupied with the blade that you had loosened from the confines of your sleeve.
What you had not anticipated to stumble across was the Darknight Hero’s underground lair.
Motion lights activated when you set foot on the final step and stretched across the length of the room. Various computers showed different tabs with valuable intel, displayed openly for those with access to enter the room. You were an exception. Who used the lair-behind-a-bookshelf trope, anyway? Perhaps there was security in that no one would think it true. The emo bastard.
You warily maneuvered around the mess of modern gadgets and file cabinets. The desks beneath the computers were piled with messes of papers and their crumpled counterparts, making it evident of his frustrations. It was almost endearing to imagine such an austere man throwing a tantrum over his midnight escapades. A chuckle resonated from your chest.
At this point, you were certain there were no booby traps to keep watch for, so you let yourself relax slightly. After pawing through some files, you kept note of the tabs, keeping in mind the keywords you recognized. A certain folder caught your attention, and your heart leaped from your chest. Fatui was scrawled across the front in thick black ink, underlined obnoxiously to the point where the material seemed to be indented from the effort. You held it out in front of you as if unsure of its authenticity.
If you destroyed this, it would set the Darknight Hero back in many valuable steps. Your superiors would recognize your efforts and praise you for your excellence. This could be the thing that set you apart from the others within the organization. Your anger issues would no longer be a problem since you would be their saving grace, capable of no wrongs, or impulses—as Childe had put it once. You would wipe that sorry smile from his face when you reported your efforts from today.
You went to tuck it beneath your shirt but found yourself hesitating at the prospect of its contents. One little peek couldn't hurt… perhaps there was something inside that you could use as leverage to uphold your authority. With this as your final decision, you flipped open to the front page. Every muscle tensed simultaneously when you saw what was printed in the text.
Found you.
Before you could leap into action, a force suddenly wrapped around you from behind, tearing you away from the desk. You let out a surprised yelp before coming to your senses. The man who had taken ahold of you grunted when you propelled your head into his chin. He was thrown off guard but didn’t let you go.
Once your feet were able to touch the ground again, you grabbed tightly onto the clothed forearm around your neck and flung the man over your shoulder. A flash of red passed your eyes as he ducked into a roll instead of hitting the ground as you had planned. He landed a safe distance from you, locking onto you with a liquid ruby gaze.
“It’s you,” you said breathlessly. The Darknight Hero’s lips upturned slightly with what you assumed was something akin to amusement. The top of his face was hidden behind a black mask, but you already knew the identity of the man poised before you.
“You seem to have gotten lost. Guests shouldn’t be down here,” he said. “Allow me to escort you elsewhere.”
The end of his sentence turned into a growl as he lunged at you once more. You narrowly dodged his jabs as he did to yours, keeping high alert of the objects in your surroundings. It seemed the two of you were evenly matched—him with his brute strength, and you with your lithe agility.
He thought he got the upper hand when he managed to grab ahold of you once more. You twisted around in his muscular arm until you faced him, then propelled your legs out from the side until your thighs found the sides of his head. You snickered before using that leverage to send him stumbling backward.
The two of you crashed into the desk and it moved with an ear-splitting scrape across the hard floors. He lay winded, fighting to sit up, but you quickly straddled him while he was down.
Breathing almost as heavily as he was, you summoned a cocky smile and leaned close to his face. “You were expecting me.”
“With a little nudge in the right direction, it was only natural for the lot of you to come crawling right to me.” His voice was husky with adrenaline. Any other day, you would have been thrilled to have a man at your mercy the way Diluc was beneath you now. Unfortunately, the current circumstances were unideal.
You quickly retrieved your knife from the floor nearby, where it had clattered when he had first caught you. Your shirt clung uncomfortably to your skin and reeked of grape juice. The Fatui symbol to the right of your sternum seemed to draw his gaze, and you tutted.
“Don’t you know better than to stare at a woman’s chest?”
He was beginning to catch his breath again. “I would never hold Fatui scum on the same pedestal as a decent woman.”
This irked you slightly, but you held your composure. Using the tip of your blade, you flicked the mask from his face and exposed his make-up-streaked eyes. Diluc’s lip curled into a scowl when it fell to the side.
“You know, Diluc, you’re kind of handsome when you’re not making those unbecoming faces,” you remarked.
“Am I supposed to feel flattered?”
You shrugged. “Feel whatever you want. It’s not gonna last long, regardless.”
His eyebrow furrowed slightly when your arm raised above your head, knife in tow. A sadistic expression made the shadows on your face seem to deepen in the lighting.
“Kaeya,” he said sternly.
You stopped in your confusion. “Why are you saying another man’s name when we’re in the middle of something?”
A familiar chuckle came from behind you. “I wanted to see if you could hold your own, brother.”
A pair of handcuffs were slapped around one of your wrists. You proceeded to be yanked to the ground when the detective chained the other to the leg of the desk. His boot-clad foot crushed your hand until the knife came loose from your grasp, which he then kicked a good ten feet away. You barely had time to react to the exploit until you had already been disarmed.
You blinked in disbelief as Kaeya extended an arm to the red-head, who scornfully accepted the gesture. It took you a moment, but when you came to the realization, it stuck with you.
“Brother?”
Kaeya smiled complacently at you while Diluc swung his sore arm in slow circles. “Yes, that’s right. We’re similar enough, aren’t we?”
Your gaze switched between the two, from Diluc’s pale skin to Kaeya’s significantly darker skin tone. They were opposites in every sense of the word. The detective dealt with public affairs, while the vigilante worked under the cover of night, where prying eyes couldn’t see. They were a symbiotic pair. No one would have been the wiser about their connection. You certainly weren’t.
Despite the seething glare from Diluc, he knelt next to you and grabbed your chin. Delirious from the excitement of the evening, you grinned. You should have felt scared. You should have been wracked with anger, shame, or even helplessness. You felt none of these things.
He frowned. “You’re so young. How did you get wrapped up in this?”
“I’m the same age as you. Why is that a problem?” you retorted, letting him turn your face side to side in a solemn inspection.
“Yes—why is that a problem, Diluc?” Kaeya chimed in. He was an instigator. You liked this quality about him.
Diluc scoffed and stood up again. He swiped his mask from the floor and tossed it onto the desk, clearly aware that there was no use for it since you already knew who he was. “Elzer, please inform everyone that the event is over. Our job is done here.”
“Yes, sir,” came a male voice over the intercom.
You made a clicking noise with your tongue. “What are you going to do with me now? Turn me into the police? You know, I haven’t done anything wrong—at least, I hadn’t yet.”
“You broke in and were about to steal something. That’s wrong.”
“I’m just a guest who got a little lost. You said it yourself earlier,” you refuted. “Kaeya, we had a connection. You can’t let him keep me here like this.”
The man shrugged. “I may be a detective, but I never said I didn’t also use unseemly methods.”
“Bastard.”
“I get that a lot,” he said nonchalantly, crossing his legs in the chair he now occupied.
Diluc pulled another chair towards you, sitting a few arms lengths away from his brother. He crossed his arms and leaned back, staring you down with his mesmerizing red eyes.
“Do I get a chair?”
“No. You get to be questioned,” Diluc said plainly. Kaeya’s light laugh was like music to your ears.
“This is going to be a long night,” you pouted.