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Bartimaeus isn’t the agency’s best assassin. He definitely is an asset however. Quick to improvise and smart at getting out of tight situations, even if his aim and physical prowess isn’t as good as say, Queezle. But still. His handler has the highest blood pressure out of all of them for a reason.
Nathaniel is startlingly young, and when Bartimaeus had first met him, he’d laughed so hard tears ran down his face.
“What, are we turning into a nursery now?” he says, wiping tears away. “Last I checked, this wasn’t reception.”
Nathaniel’s nostrils flare. “I’m nineteen,” he says tightly.
Bartimaeus scoffs and walks away thinking, I’m going to have to watch out for myself now that they’ve saddled me with this infant.
On their first mission together, Bartimaeus barely listens to Nathaniel’s hissed instructions. That’s probably how he ends up backed against a dead end with the sound of boots hitting concrete coming up behind him.
“Ok, now would be a good time for some of that good ol’ handler action,” Bartimaeus mutters into his earpiece.
“You didn’t listen to me!” Nathaniel spits, and Bartimaeus can almost hear him hopping up and down in anger. “I told you specifically not to use the East Wing!”
“That’s nice,” he says, pressing himself into a shadowy corner. “Any other utterly useful info you’d like to share before I die a grisly death?”
There’s silence on the other line for a second and Bartimaeus can practically hear the petty gears turning in Nathaniel’s head. His handler wouldn’t leave him to die just because he ignored a couple instructions, Bartimaeus reasons. Probably.
“Do you still have your tie?” his voice crackles in Bartimaeus’s ear.
“Yeah, of course,” Bartimaeus says. “What, was I supposed to lose it on the way out of the window?”
“Shut up and pay attention.”
After Nathaniel saves his life, Bartimaeus gives in and actually listens to his orders. (You would never hear him admit it, but Nathaniel is kind of a genius when it comes to manipulating your way out of a sticky sitauation.) He doesn’t follow Nathaniel’s commands without comment though. His handler is this infuriating combination of smug self-assurance and unbearable juvenescence, and Bartimaeus likes to amuse himself on boring missions by taking the piss out of him sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. Okay. Most of the time.
Bartimaeus doesn’t think too much of it. Of how he finds it cute when Nathaniel gets riled up and his cheeks burn red. How captivating it is when he’s talking about something he’s really passionate about and he gets an almost maniacal glint in his eye. The dedication he has to his work and to making sure that every agent under him comes out safe. Even when he’s going on and on about something endlessly boring in that annoying, know-it-all voice, all Bartimaeus wants to do is just shut him up with a kiss.
One day he does.
Nathaniel doesn’t seem to mind too much if the enthusiasm with which he responds is anything to go by. Bartimaeus should not be this turned on by a skinny nineteen year old who talks way too much about Euclidian geometry, but holy god this kid can kiss.
They fall into a bizarre pattern after that. sometimes they’ll kiss, sometimes they’ll fuck. It’s a great stress reliever, Bartimaeus discovers. A couple of times Nathaniel will say absent-mindedly, “Not now, Bartimaeus.” And Bartimaeus knows that there’s a particularly tricky case going on and he also knows to leave a sandwich and a cup of tea on Nathaniel’s desk. It’s all becoming disgustingly domestic, and sometimes he manhandles Nathaniel a little more than necessary to remind himself to stay focused. Nathaniel always gives it all right back.
“Probably not a great idea to fuck around with your handler,” his boss tells him offhandedly one day. “Quite literally, in this case.”
Bartimaeus wrinkles his nose. “How do you always know everything, Kitty? Are our rooms bugged?”
“You know they are,” Kitty says placidly. “Otherwise i wouldn’t know what a stupid mistake a supposedly smart agent like you is making right now.”
Bartimaeus sneers. “What is this? Romeo and Juliet? We’re not exchanging lovey-dovey sentimentals on missions. You know I’m better than that.”
Kitty raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”
After that exchange, Bartimaeus backs off on pulling Nathaniel into empty hallways. Fortunately, Nathaniel gets the message. Unfortunately, he’s way too bullheaded for his own good.
He finds Bartimaeus alone one day and forces him to face him. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he says. “What’s going on? You’ve had your fun and now you’re done?”
“Look,” Bartimaeus says impatiently. “I’ll be frank. The superiors aren’t so keen on this whole shebang. Don’t like the idea of a business relationship being potentially...distracted. You get it.”
Nathaniel doesn’t say anything for a while. and then he says, “Okay. What do you want?”
“What?”
Nathaniel gets up close in his face so they’re in this weirdly intimate position. “What do you want? Not as an agent or whatever bullshit. What do you want?”
Bartimaeus laughs in disbelief. This kid, he thinks. “Me?” he says. “I. I liked kissing your pretty face.”
Nathaniel colors slightly but just shrugs. “Well, then.” And he elbows his way into Bartimaeus’s lap and kisses him until they can’t quite breathe.
They don’t try to pussyfoot around it after that.
“What about Kitty?” Nathaniel asks one night. They’re in Bartimaeus’s bed and Bartimaeus has wrapped himself around Nathaniel so that he can’t move because he had complained he was cold.
Bartimaeus buries his face into Nathaniel’s hair. He may like to poke fun at Nathaniel’s obsession with immaculate hygiene, but he has to admit Nathaniel’s hair always smells amazing. “Forget about Kitty. She’s not the boss of me.”
“She is literally our boss,” Nathaniel mutters. But he doesn’t bring it up again.
-
“This sounds like a fun case,” Bartimaeus says conversationally as he climbs through the ventilation system of their most recent target’s house. “And this crib? Very fantaisie.”
“Stop talking,” Nathaniel says irritably. “I’m trying to read. Aren’t you supposed to be on clandestine mode right now?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He crawls a couple more meters in when he hears the gunshots. A second later, the ground drops out from under him and he lands in an undignified and rather painful pile on the floor below. A woman stares at him with a worryingly tranquil expression. There’s also a gun in her hand.
“Uh, is there supposed to be another agent hitting the Manticore’s place up tonight?”
“You idiot,” Nathaniel hisses. “That is her.”
“Oh,” Bartimaeus says. “Well. This certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.”
The Manticore bears her teeth in a terrifying approximation of a smile. “What, were you expecting a six foot muscled man?”
“Kinda,” Bartimaeus mutters and launches himself at her.
She’s really strong. And really fast. Also, really experienced. Within five minutes, she’s cut his face in two places, and then grazes his arm with a bullet. Meanwhile he can barely keep up with her.
“Bartimaeus!” Nathaniel’s voice is suddenly in Bartimaeus’s ear again. His voice has a strange tremor and high-pitched quality to it, like someone set a bunch of squirrels loose in his precious library (again). “You have to get to the roof. Get to the roof, okay? Forget about the Manticore, you weren’t supposed to go in alone. You need to get out of there, do you hear me?”
Bartimaues doesn’t say anything in reply because he’s a little busy trying to keep this little minx from slicing his throat. Pulling a small smoke bomb out of his pocket, he ducks under her arm and throws it blindly in her direction. As soon as it goes off, he runs, not even checking if she was at all affected by the attack. As he approaches the roof, he can hear bullets ricocheting off the walls behind him.
Damn, she’s fast, he thinks grimly. But Nathaniel’s even faster if the sound of whirring blades is anything to go by. Bartimaeus hurls himself up the last set of stairs and spots a rope hanging in midair, going all the way up to a small auto-piloted helicopter. Something stings his ear, and he stumbles when a bullet clips his left leg.
“Go, go, go!” he shouts at his handler, grabbing onto the rope and yanking himself up. As they move away, he can still see the Manticore on the roof, calmly emptying her magazine in his direction.
With a last burst of strength, Bartimaeus pulls himself up into the helicopter.
“Well, that wasn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be. Although to be fair, we definitely were not properly briefed on this case.”
“Oh my god, you almost died,” Nathaniel says, before grabbing Bartimaeus’s shirt and crashing their lips together. He was afraid, Bartimaues realizes in surprise. He can feel the fear in Nathaniel’s shaking shoulders, and can taste the desperate relief in his kiss.
It’s okay, Bartimaeus wants to say. I’m here, I’m okay, but instead he just pushes Nathaniel up against the inner lining of the helicopter. (They’ve never been too great at open communication.)
“If you have sex while online again, I’m going to murder you both,” Kitty’s sharp voice barks into their ears.
Bartimaeus pulls away reluctantly. “You know Kitty. She’ll do it.”
Nathaniel laughs weakly and sits back in his seat. He runs an unsteady hand through his hair.
“I was really worried that time,” he says quietly.
Bartimaeus doesn’t say anything. He takes Nathaniel’s hand and entwines their fingers together.
“Hey, we’ll probably get a pay raise after that, huh? What a shitty mistake to make, confusing the Manticore with the Minotaur. I’ll be sure to complain so much even Farrar hears about it.”
He rambles on until Nathaniel’s hands stop trembling.