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He wished Grayson would stop flirting with the stewardess, if for a moment. It’s irritating to watch, moreso listen.
“... il manque ton numéro, ” Grayson finishes, with a brilliant, infuriating grin. “Oops— “
“Ah, let me, Monsieur,” the stewardess coos, dabbing the spilled champagne needlessly off Grayson’s silken flank. “Apologies,” Grayson says in awful, heavily accented french. “I’ve had one too many, it seems—or maybe I’m nervous in face of such a beautiful—”
Mashallah, give him strength, Tiger thinks in disgust. Americans. He flips his Le Monde a tad too roughly it nearly tears.
“Aw, relax, why don’t you,” Grayson tells him, after the stewardess disappears from the cabin— not before she slips a napkin with her number and a gauche print of lipstick on it. “The mission’s done—with flying colors, might I add, you’re welcome—life is great. The champagne is greater. I’m a sexy french spy engaging in consensual flirting. La vie est belle, oui?”
Tiger considers throwing Grayson off of the plane. Perhaps not his best idea. Tiger eyes the raised glass dryly; he doesn’t drink. Grayson, despite himself, never touched the glass with his lips either. “Your french is terrible.” He turns his gaze back to his paper. A decrepit cathedral burns down and everybody loses their shit. World Weeps for Notre-Dame. What a joke.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Grayson sighs. And then, in a startlingly smooth, perfect french: “Tu n’as pas eu mal quand tu es tombé du ciel?”
Tiger stares at Grayson evenly, at his row of perfect teeth lined in a cheeky smile. “Say that again and I will cut your balls.”
Grayson raises both hands in mock surrender. “Sheesh.” Then, after a while, “you know, this had seemed a lot more fun in the movies.” It is said with dry mirth, like a bad joke.
Tiger gives him a once over. Grayson looks—he doesn’t look happy. He doesn’t look like he is enjoying himself, at all. The napkin, along with the champagne, untouched. It would fool a lesser man.
Surprising both of them, Tiger gives him a smile; a nasty, grim smile, because that’s the only way he knows how to smile—but it is what it is, nonetheless. “Regretting your choice of profession already, Agent Thirty-seven?” The smile shuts out. Beyond the window, the sky is clear blue. They are landing soon.
“Ah, well,” Grayson says, after a while. He looks at Tiger with something like curiosity, and mild amusement. “It has its perks. We ought to get unionized, though.”
Tiger wonders how long the jokes will last, or if it will outlast Tiger’s patience. “You will regret it soon,” Tiger does not say, because that would be childish. After all, he does not think he would be partnered up with Grayson after this. He sure as hell wish he won’t. He huffs, intending to spend the rest of the flight pretending Grayson does not exist. Sadly, life has never been kind to Tiger.
And maybe, a part of him is … entertained. Just a little.
“So,” Grayson starts, leaning forward on his knees. The light reflected from the window grazes the expensive line of his shirt richly. “About that shoe phone.”
For Allah’s sake. Tiger does not bother to answer, intending to ignore Grayson’s entire being. But he can’t resist the sheer fucking grating smile on Grayson’s face. “I told you. Not. A shoe phone.”
“Don’t be stingy,” Grayson huffs. “I saw it. We both know what it is. I want it. It looks dumb. I really want it.”
“I’ll shove it in your mouth, if you want it so much,” Tiger says, and decides to leave it at that. But.
“Wow, at least buy me dinner first,” Grayson retorts with the same brilliant smile he sent the stewardess’ way—and Tiger’s fingers clenched instinctively against an imaginary trigger. Leave it for the American to be so tasteless. He curls his lips in cold distaste. This was the worst mission yet—and it was successful, for all its worth. But. Never had he been so close to murdering his own partner (not including the ones who crossed sides). He swears he would not be partnered up with Dick Grayson again if it kills him.
And anyway. How long will Dick Grayson last, in this line of job? He is a bad spy who is going to get himself killed. Tiger is sure.
“First class peanuts are fucking delicious,” Agent Thirty-seven says, chewing disgracefully. He is licking salt off his fingertips. Tiger watches him does so in mild disgust, and nasty, wonderous amusement. Like one would watch a mad man swims in the public fountain. “You should try some.”
Tiger is damn sure.
“With all due respect, Ma’am,” Tiger struggles to keep his voice acceptably destitute. “This is unwise.” To put it fucking mildly.
“Oh?”
Helena Bertinelli’s gaze cuts like the finest razor. Tiger has met people like her; ones made of flint, unshakable core. These are the people that he respects, even when he shoots them in the head. “Do tell.”
“Agent Thirty-seven is inexperienced—”
“And so this would be the much needed experience for him, wouldn’t you think?”
Tiger clenches his jaw. He despises to be interrupted. “With all due respect. We both know that his principles will hinder this operation.” And with all due respect, recruiting Dick Grayson in the first place is a fucking mistake. Tiger adds, “Ma’am.”
One perfectly groomed eyebrow raised at his tone. “Do we now.” She stares at him unflinchingly, and he stares back. She taps a manicured fingernail on the crystal table. “Agent Thirty-seven is an asset.”
If Tiger were less professional, he would scoff. “He is a terrible spy.”
“Hm,” Bertinelli—It’s quick, but it’s there—smiles. Like Tiger’s, it’s cruel, and unkind. “I do so hate to repeat myself, Agent One.” Tiger clenches his jaw for the second time this minute. Steady. “Agent Thirty-seven is an asset. And Spyral takes care of its asset. What do you do to forge a knife out of steel? You burn it.”
He wills himself not to roll his eyes. Americans and their dramatics. He will not play along to their little Shakespearean monologue. “He fucked up.”
“And he will not fuck up again. I’ve made sure of that,” she adds, almost coyly, “hm. Personally.”
Ah. Americans. “I see,” he drawls. It’s obvious there is no room for objection. If they want to kill Grayson off so soon, fine. He just thinks Grayson is — a wild factor , he is —
“Unpredictable, is he?” Bertinelli smiles, and it lasts longer, this time; reveling in its coldness. Tiger stares at her, steadily.
“I can handle him,” he replies curtly. He is nothing if not professional, and that’s that.
“I read if you crack an egg on the sand, it’ll cook.”
Dick stretches, purposefully obnoxious. Tiger doesn’t deign him a response. Dick continues, “I read it on Twitter. Do you, perchance, have an egg?”
Nada. And then, “I’m hungry, if that’s not obvious.”
“Starve.”
Oh, he speaks. A small triumph. Dick smiles. The heat is sweltering, melting to the bone. It’s almost hot enough to be distracting, and Dick doesn’t like that. He’s never been to Uruzgan before. Or anywhere this hot. He’s been to outer space, but his alarms are ringing, bugging his nerves: foreign territory, foreign territory. Unswitchable, built in, ever-blaring warning. Ah well.
He has company: Tiger.
The nook of the street they stand in is half shaded by a nearby building; not like it helps. It must be what, eighty-five degrees? Tiger does not seem to be bothered in the least—his kaffiyeh unshifting in the dead wind. Thanks to Spyral tech, Dick looks like any other civilians to passers-by despite his attire—but he’s starting to think it’s wiser to put on proper clothes if he doesn’t want to risk being lobsterized. The color red never did suit him. Does Spyral cover health insurance other than gunshots and near decapitation and occasional death? Like, say, sunburn? Does it even cover dental care?
He was about to inquire about these very important questions when Tiger shifts, suddenly. Dick reacts instinctively, hand itching to his holstered hip. Tiger nods his head, though, “there’s our contact.”
It’s a young man, skinny build, shorter than Dick—wearing a teal taqiyah and sarong. He has dark skin, and bright green eyes. Walking towards them with purpose. Unarmed, or so it seems. “Assalamualaikum.” His voice is mild, friendly.
“Waalaikumsalam.” Dick almost stumbles with the greeting, despite his practice.
Those eyes move to Dick. Intelligent and scrutinizing. “Who is the pretty boy?” he says, with a tone that suggests he knows exactly who he is. His english has a lilting accent.
No harm in being charming. “Agent Thirty-seven, at your service.”
He looks amused. “I see,” he hums. “You may call me Aatish.”
“Agent Fourteen,” Tiger corrects, like the straight man he is.
“Oh, settle down, will you?” Agent Fourteen—Aatish—turns to Tiger. He hums, again, “you look good, Yaw. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he doesn’t wait for an answer. He turns to Dick. “Isn’t he an arse?”
“Agent Fourteen,” Tiger warns. Aatish winks. Dick decides he likes Aatish.
“Well, shall we?”
They settle into a coffee shop, near the window, corner of the room. Eye to the exit. No one seems to pay them the slightest attention other than eyeing them warily when they came in. Wonders of technology, Dick thinks, bitterly. Personally, he doesn’t trust it. He finds he is proficient in tech work, and he tries to keep it that way, but that’s exactly why he’d rather keep things analog when he can—he knows how dangerous—and with Spyral, how insidious— that shit is. Having something implanted in his eye and skin and brain is not something he thinks of fondly.
Dick takes a sip of the coffee, and says in surprise, “wow, ” ignoring Tiger’s blatant disapproving glare at him, because Holy Shit, Batman.
“Better than Starbucks, eh?” Aatish leans back, with that same playful amusement. “The best coffee is in Kabul, though. You haven’t lived till you taste that, pretty man.”
“This isn’t a tourist visit.”
Aatish gives Tiger a stink eye. Up close, Dick realizes that Agent Fourteen couldn’t be older than Dick is, maybe even younger. “Pah. You haven’t changed,” Aatish says it like a diagnosis. “Anyway. Everything’s on schedule. There is a clear path north-west from the highway. That’d be, I say, four, five hours.” Aatish shakes his head. “Took a lot of pain in opening that one, but it’s a go zone.”
Work talk. Hypnos takes care of it too; no one still pays them any attention whatsoever. How convenient. Good for a man’s paranoia. Baudrillard would weep.
Tiger doesn’t touch the coffee. He eyes the street from the window, where a couple of boys are throwing stones near the street vendors. A couple of SUVs, then pick-ups drive by. Gunmen. Dick shifts imperceptibly in his seat.
“You can stare,” Aatish tells him. “We all do.”
“Private contracts?” Dick asks. Some aren’t in uniform. Aatish shakes his head. “Official. Dutch. They hold the op here. In Kandahar, the Canadians. Different each province. NATO-assigned,” Aatish grins, mocking. “Convoluted, eh? That’s how the west do it. Making bigger shit out of everything for everyone.”
Dick wonders vaguely if this was the ... trickiest mission he’s been yet. But well. Dick always makes do. Doesn’t he? The usual op is simple, in and out. Occasional run-ins with other agencies, at most, or a certain asshole calling himself Midnighter— so far he could handle those. But this, and Agent One. Tiger. King of Kandahar. This is nowhere near a simple in-and-out.
He puts his coffee down. What’s Helena—Spyral—playing at, assigning him for this? Making a statement, perhaps? He’s surprised he’s given clearance on this one. Their way of telling him that he’s here for the long run, maybe? Dick chafes over that line of thought grimly; it settles uneasily in his gut.
Bruce’s radio silence. Agent Eight. And now this. What a shitshow. If only he could go back to wearing green panties.
And Dick doesn’t like it, hates it even, but well—he doubts he is much of use here. For extra firepower—hah, after he fucked things up with The Old Gun? What a joke—or maybe just reinforcement. Still. Dick knows his skills, and he knows he’s the best in his former profession; but this is uncharted territory. Dick has no illusion on what he can and can not do. Arrogance gets you killed—or worse, others. He learned that before he reached puberty as Robin. Here, now, he is a novice agent who fucked up once and got an agent killed on the way. He isn’t Robin—Nightwing—anymore.
Moreover, this is Tiger’s territory, and Dick knows boundaries when he sees it. Regretfully, he also knows he isn’t good with boundaries. The worst, some would say.
He’s pretty sure he’s gonna majorly piss Tiger off in this mission. And not just once. Ah well.
“They know you’re coming,” Aatish says, staring mildly at Tiger. “They don’t know where, or when. But they know.” He puts down his empty cup, and stands. “My treat,” he tells Dick, with mirth. “Let’s go.”
Some cars pass. Toyota Corollas, stopped by searching policemen. No one bothers them. They walk in ease pace on the paved streets, and then passing a traffic circle. Old men are squatting, holding hashish, watching them under the smoke. A couple of children—boys, Dick notes—play at the sides, throwing pebbles, near the vendors. It would look bucolic if it were not for the patrolling gunmen, and the convoys. After a few blocks, streets turn to dirt tracks. They stop near a gated building, with a tall wall. A couple of guards. Aatish talks to them in Pashto; Dick lets it ease to his head, translated by Spyral tech, setting aside the grating distrust of the damn thing coiling in his gut. Tiger is quiet. Not uncharacteristic for him, but this kind of quiet is familiar to Dick.
“Nervous?” Dick inquires, because he has balls bigger than the devil.
“Is that an insult?” Tiger shoots back, though with that same stillness. King of the jungle.
Before Dick can reply, Aatish gestures at them. The guards let them in. As they go, Dick stares at the graffiti splattered across the wall; a pair of giant eyes, in bleak colors, staring right back at him.
The guards hold kalashnikov. Locals, intermingling with—Dutch, wasn’t it. Dick breathes, tries to shove his instinct down, down; though he can’t help his mind frizzling like haywire, shouting off anticipations and directions ( two at his three o’clock, another at his twelve, exit north and east, keep close range if things go shit, don’t die ), and he tries not to fidget. Tries to focus on feeling the comforting weight of the batons at his hips, the numerous knives, and even the uneasy weight of the glock. Dick is paranoid, sure, but that’s kept him alive in his job as long as it has. Jobs, plural.
They enter a room. Dick can’t help but instinctively moving back, consciously placing himself in the ideal position when—if—things blow. Which they hopefully won’t, and Dick isn’t a pessimist, but he sure as hell is a realist. Aatish eyes him funnily, when he passes him, and mouths, “cute,” with a snark grin. He’d noticed. Dick finds he doesn’t have a quip on his tongue, so he shrugs.
In the room, it’s tight with smoke. There is a man, in a silk bed, with a gold gilded chillum in hand. He is old, and aplomb, and eyes them with a dull, arrogant sort of look. The man’s eyes find Tiger, and that turns to distaste real fast. “You.” He speaks in Pashto, but another dialect. Dick feels slightly disoriented as his Hypnos shifts and whirrs, translating. The animosity does not seem to faze Tiger. Dick can’t see Tiger’s face, but his voice is flat and impassable when he replies, “long time no see. You look terrible. Fattening up nicely, I see, like the pig you are.”
Huh, Dick thinks, in distant wonder. No one in the room moves, though, not even the guards. Save for the sputtering old man.
“God damn you. Arrogant little fucker.” Coughing. Dust motes in the air, gleaming through plumes of hashish. Dick feels slightly sick. “What do you want? The deal is done. I gave you the convoy.”
“Paying you a visit, Abdul,” Tiger says. He takes the chillum off from Abdul’s fat fingers and throws it across the room violently. Still, none of the guards move; they stay stagnant, eyes front. Dick understands now. They are not under Abdul’s order, the guards; none of them are.
“Fuck you,” Abdul spits, even as Tiger holds the front of his robe menacingly, poised like a threat, promising violence.
“You grow fat here behind a wall like a coward."
“Coward?” Abdul laughs. “I’m not the one gallivanting with outsiders across the world doing their dirty jobs while my own people suffer —”
Violence delivered. The impact cracks like a whip, almost drowning Abdul’s moan of pain. Dick tenses, surprised; but still, the room is in stagnant. No one flinched but him. Aatish watches the event unfold with not so much a blink.
Boundaries, Dick reminds himself. Boundaries.
“Traitor,” Abdul hisses, mouth bloody. The hit must’ve gotten some of his teeth. “You forgot about us. You collude with the westerners. You—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Tiger barks. “You think I don’t know about that little deal you made with Ghilzai?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Coward to the last breath,” Tiger says, the light from the window glints off something slipping to Tiger’s hand—and Dick moves before he knows it.
The shot missed by a mere inch. “Agent Thirty-seven,” Tiger breathes. “Are you out of your mind?”
Yes, positively, Dick thinks distantly. Tiger’s fury is so palpable he could almost taste it.
“Let go.”
Dick squeezes Tiger’s wrist, where he had the gun, keeping it trained to the floor. “No,” Dick decides.
Tiger curses, and apparently, this is the unfortunate moment where Dick finds that Tiger is stronger than he is in terms of brute strength. Dick grunts as Tiger’s weight overwhelms his balance. They both crash to the ground—ouch—though each of their hold to the gun is equally unrelenting. Abdul yelps, scrambles off the floor, and makes for the exit. A furious noise tears from Tiger’s throat. Dick twists so his body could stay on top of Tiger, but before it escalates, Aatish takes a revolver out of his sarong and shoots Abdul point blank.
The shot is deafening. The ringing in his ears is almost painful. Then, not a second after, Dick is on the ground, Tiger looming above him like some enraged revenant. Dick’s side hurts from where Tiger had pushed him off, throbbing with the memory of angry fingers. But that’s not it, what clogs Dick’s head, his heart. What’s hurting him is something else, so raw to his core that it’s disorienting. Rendering him inert at this moment. Dumb. He almost doesn’t understand what the fuck just happened.
“You are a fucking idiot,” beyond the tinnitus, Tiger’s voice is like cold water. Tiger’s anger, Dick finds, is sobering. “Get the fuck up.”
Behind him, Aatish is slipping his revolver back behind his sarong. He looks at Dick with something almost like pity. “Sorry,” Aatish says. “I don’t have a suppressor.” At his feet, Abdul lays, dead. Dick blinks.
“You try this again, and I will kill you myself,” Tiger says.
Suddenly, Dick finds his voice. The shock wears off, and his temper flares; for an unbearable moment, Dick feels like he could scream. He tries to breathe. “This was not in the mission brief,” he says, breathless.
“The mission brief tells you to wait for my order. To do as I say.”
They look at each other, hard. Tiger is taller than him by considerable inches. “What gives you the right,” Dick starts, and for a second, Tiger has this look on his face like he could kill him.
“The right? To be judge, jury, executioner?” Tiger sneers. He barks quick orders, eyes still locked on Dick’s. The door opens as Abdul’s body is carried out like a dead weight by the guards, followed by Aatish. They’re alone in the room, suffocated by the stench of gunpowder and cannabis. “I know of your mentor’s high moral fucking ground. Petty self-assurement.”
Dick’s anger shocks himself. That’s what had hurt, perhaps, the burning in the pit of his chest, the desire to unleash so bad it’s beyond skin. “You know nothing,” Dick says.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Tiger looks at him with furious disgust. “You think you know about war. About fighting. With that city you protect,” he holsters his gun. Tiger’s knuckles are raw, scrapes of blood smearing off his clothes. “What you did was foolish. You compromised other agent’s safety. I did not take you as someone who could not learn."
Alia. Agent Eight. Of course. Dick’s flare of anger leaves him like how it came, with no warning. Nothing left but acid in his mouth. Fuck. Dick feels like throwing up. "Still doesn't explain why you killed him."
Tiger regards him; for a moment, it seems like his temper is cooling. "He has nothing to do with Spyral," he speaks, slowly, coldly. Impassable, once again. Dick knows what that means. Nothing to do with Spyral, nothing to do with the mission, none of Dick's fucking concern.
"And this. Doesn't compromise the objective. Is that it?" Dick says, but his adrenaline has crashed. It tires him to the bone.
"If you find the need to nurse your conscience, then you are an idiot in the wrong place and the wrong suit," Tiger says flatly. "There is no place here for your moral quandary. If you need to be briefed before anyone is killed so you will not fuck up the mission, fine."
“I,” he won’t apologize. He won’t apologize. “I don’t kill. I won’t.”
Something conflicts in Tiger’s face. Exasperation, but Dick doesn't think of Tiger so soft. Tiger shakes his face, like in disbelief. “You are an idiot. Have it your way. But do not think for a second you can pull off that shit again. If you get in the way I will kill you myself. If you die, Spyral will perhaps scrap what's left of you off the ground. Perhaps not. Not my problem.”
When they leave, Tiger is still seething with anger, seemingly insistent in ignoring Dick’s existence. The sun is still high in the sky, even though it had felt like forever inside the building. Aatish doesn’t seem to be bothered, if still amused, with that almost-sympathetic look directed at Dick. Dick could almost take it. He’s fucking exhausted. When Tiger speaks with an official man outside the building, Aatish stands beside him, offering a cigarette. Dick refuses politely. Aatish shrugs, takes a drag. Like he did not just kill a man not ten minutes ago.
What did Midnighter say about Spyral? Liars and murderers. Has Dick been fooling himself? Bruce—god. Bruce.
Dick eyes the vandalized wall, the eyes staring back at him. And then it hits him, what it is, he knows. The wall. It’s a preemptive. Suicide blast wall. He wonders how he hadn't noticed the first time. Dick feels sick.
“There are a lot of those, in Kabul,” Aatish says, like commenting on the weather. At Dick’s questioning look, he elaborates. “The wall. One you’re looking at. Kabul looks like prison because of them.” He takes a last drag, cigarette burning up to the filter. And then drops it to the ground, grinding it down with the heel of his sandal. “It’s an eyesore. And makes it hard for, ah, what you say. Metal scavangers. Like him,” he nods at a civilian not far away, pushing a cart filled with debris. “They gotta take the long way round the city, you see. Bad for business, too.”
Tiger returns. He looks at Aatish, then almost looks at Dick. “Let’s go,” he says. “We’ve got a long way to Kandahar.”