Chapter Text
“Still trying to learn proper knighthood from books, Barba?”
Rafael turns to find Olivia grinning at him from across the open practice space outside the castle, her ragtag group of knights arrayed around her. He smirks, tucking his books under his arm.
“Think you can teach me a thing or two, Sir Benson? I’m always willing to learn,” he calls back as he starts towards them, which earns him an even larger grin from Olivia and a few laughs from the knights around her.
“Aren’t you worried about messing up your hair?” Amaro jokes, to further laughs from his fellow knights, but Olivia retrieves her sword from where it’s resting against the bench next to her. It’s longer than Rafael’s, heavier, and she can put all of her considerable force behind a blow in a way that he could never hope to match, but he’s quicker, hands and feet, and more precise with his weapon than she is.
Neither of them are really dressed to spar, especially not with their proper swords, although Olivia at least still has her half-armor on, mail shirt and spaulder over her sword arm. He’s only in the sweater and jeans he’d worn to the library, sword belt strapped across his hips, but he’s not about to turn down an opportunity to spar with Olivia Benson. Rafael hands his books to Carisi, who accepts them eagerly and tilts the stack to read the titles, and draws his sword as she sets her feet in a ready stance in front of him.
They’re completely still for a few moments, sizing each other up like this is the first time they’ve done this, and then Olivia lunges forward to cheers from her knights. He dances back out of the way, catches the blow with his own sword and twists upward, even though he knows she won’t lose her grip that easily, then takes his own swing. She blocks the wide arc of it easily, turns her shoulders to put her weight behind their crossed weapons and push him back again, and then they’re off, all singing steel.
She has the upper hand from the beginning, coming off of a training session with her squad rather than sitting in the library all day, even if he can feel her holding back a bit because he’s not wearing his armor. He holds his own, spins and falls out of the way every time she really throws her weight at him, cuts wide swinging arcs short to try and slip under the length of her sword, but it’s only a matter of time and they both know it.
Eventually Olivia blocks one of his attacks and tilts forward with her shoulder, but when he leans back to counter her push, she swings her sword down instead and catches one calf with the flat of the blade, pulling it back towards her to upset his already precarious balance and sending him tumbling backwards into the dirt.
He rolls quickly, manages to get up on to one knee, but he knows it’s over even before he feels the edge of her blade at his neck. Olivia is lit by the setting sun behind her as she stands over him, both of them breathing hard, and Rafael grins with all his teeth, tilts his chin up to look at her, exposing the full length of his throat. Something flashes in her eyes for a moment, and he lets his sword fall from his hand.
“I cede, Sir Benson,” he says softly, and after a few seconds she lets her own sword fall to her side, “Congratulations, Liv.”
“Well fought, Sir Barba,” she replies, offering a hand up as her squad claps, and then all official knightly decorum falls by the wayside as she returns his grin once she’s pulled him up out of the dirt and back on to even footing with her. “Join us for a drink, Rafa?”
“I’d love to, but I’ve got a meeting with the king. Next time?”
“Next time. Carisi, give the scholar knight his books back.”
“Of course. Actually, I had a question about-”
Fin wraps an arm around Carisi’s neck and pulls him backwards. “You heard the man, Carisi, he’s needed by His Majesty. You can ask him about whatever it is the next time Liv kicks his ass.”
“Until next time then,” Rafael says, to various waves and goodbyes from the squad, and a grin and a nod from Olivia. He’s going to be late to his meeting with Alex, but it’s more than worth it.
When Rafael reaches the room where the king meets with his advisors and the Royal Guard, he hears giggling behind the door, which cuts off abruptly when he knocks. After a few seconds, Alex calls “Come in!” and he opens the door to find him sitting at the end of the table and a young woman in a castle uniform dusting one of the bookshelves along the back wall.
“Sorry to interrupt?” he says, but Alex just smiles and gestures him into the room.
“Anna was just doing her rounds, and since my meeting was late, I told her she should go ahead and get started. Though I can see now what held you up, Sir Barba.”
Rafael tries to brush some of the dirt off of his knees. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”
Alex laughs. “Give my regards to Sir Benson the next time you see her. Anna, could you give us a few minutes, and then we’ll get out of your way.” The young woman curtsies on her way out of the room, smiling back over her shoulder at the king. Rafael sets his books on the table and takes the seat to the left of Alex’s at the head of the table.
“Is Eddie coming?” he asks. They only ever use their titles in front of other people; behind closed doors it’s always been Rafi and Alex and Eddie.
“No, he’s handling something for me. And actually, I only needed to talk to you. Sir Bradley is retiring, and I thought that you-”
It’s Rafael’s turn to laugh. “Alex, I don’t want to be forced into some squad that is only going to resent me for taking their number two’s spot.”
“Fine,” Alex says, shaking his head, “You know, Sir Benson has an opening in her squad, with Sir Munch retiring.”
He doesn’t bother dignifying that one with an answer. Munch had put down his sword over a year ago, and Carisi had taken his place shortly after, but since SVU squad was almost always undersized, there was technically space to add another knight to the group. It’s not that he doesn’t like the idea of officially joining the squad, but in nearly three decades of knighthood he’s never been a part of any squad and has never wanted to be, and it feels pathetic and intrusive to have his childhood friend the king all but order them to include him when they do a fine job of that on their own.
Besides, he has Alex and Eddie. He’s spent considerably more time with Olivia and her squad in the past few years than with the two of them, because Eddie has his own squad and King Alejandro is considerably busier than Prince Alex had ever been, but when it is just the three of them, away from the Royal Guard and the king’s advisors and their obligations and their titles, it’s pretty much the same as it has always been.
Alex sighs, shifting the papers spread out in front of him. “I suppose I’ll give the spot to Sir Dodds then. His father’s requested it.”
“Michael Dodds wants to be in Benson’s squad?”
“His father certainly wants him to be.”
Rafael isn’t quite sure what to make of that. Olivia is, in his opinion, the best squad leader any knight could want, but the only member of her squad who has any noble blood at all is Rollins, who is from a kingdom to the south and thus isn’t generally considered a real noble at all, at least among the kingdom’s own. The rest of them are all of common blood, including Olivia herself, and he wonders if Dodds thinks that his son can leverage his own noble status to wrestle some degree of leadership away from her. If so, he’s seriously underestimating the loyalty that Olivia’s knights feel towards her personally, and he almost feels bad for the kid. On the other hand, maybe Dodds just wants his son to learn from the best.
“He’s welcome to it then. And lucky.” He glances at the papers Alex is shuffling. “Did you need anything else from me? Or was it just the offer you knew I’d refuse?”
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Rafi. Like always.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing else?” Lately it’s felt like there’s something that he’s keeping back, but maybe that’s just the nature of kingship, that there are some burdens that simply cannot be shared, even with his oldest friend.
“I’m sure. Will you send Anna back in when you leave, if she’s still out there? I’m going to stay and work, but I don’t want to delay her.”
“Of course. You’re sure-?”
Alex laughs, waves him away. “I’m sure, Rafi. You worry too much.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s my job.”
“Then I’m giving you the night off.”
“Fine. Don’t work too late.”
Anna is indeed waiting outside when he exits, which seems strange if she’s worried about finishing her work, but Rafael only tells her that she has the king’s permission to continue cleaning the room while he works. She smiles and curtsies, and he nods back, already considering what to do with his newly free night.
--------------
“I just don’t get what sort of knight prefers books to his sword.”
Rafael resists the urge to roll his eyes. “The sort that realizes there are solutions beyond the end of a weapon.”
“When you were a kid, dreaming about being a knight, you really imagined yourself sitting in the library reading books on chivalry and tactics?” Amaro asks, and he shrugs.
“I like books. Always have.”
Sitting next to Amaro, Fin laughs. “Haven’t you had this argument with Barba enough times? You didn’t even spar with him today, you were too busy beating the shit out of Dodds.”
It’s Amaro’s turn to shrug. “He’s gotta learn sometime.”
“Learn what exactly?” Rollins leans across the table towards him. “What valuable skill does you taking giant two-handed whacks at his head teach him?”
“That if he wants to make it as a real knight, all that classical training his dad got him is only going to go so far.”
Rollins, who is just as classically trained as Dodds, if not more so, and makes up for any predictability inherent in that by being quick as a snake, doesn’t bother responding. Dodds, sitting at the end of the table, new squad insignia on his shoulder, can’t quite seem to figure out if he should come to his own defense or not. He’d held his own as far as Rafael could tell from what he’d seen between his own bouts with Rollins and Carisi, and he thinks he’ll probably do just fine in the squad once he settles in, as long as his ambition-- or his father’s-- doesn’t outstrip his good sense. He hasn’t seen Olivia since Dodds had joined the squad, and she’d had a squad leaders’ meeting during training today, so he’s not sure what she thinks.
He’s considering heading home for the evening-- Rollins and Amaro are settling into their argument, which means it will be difficult to get a word in-- when Eddie comes in with a couple of his squadmates. Eddie’s squad has always been friendly enough, but Rafael still waits until he’s gone up to the bar by himself before he goes over to join him. Asking Eddie about Alex is one thing, and asking Sir Garcia about the mission the king had sent him on in front of their fellow knights is entirely another.
Eddie grins when Rafael leans against the counter next to him. “Hey, Rafi.”
“You get back this morning?”
“Late last night. Saw your mom, by the way. She says hello.”
“You were in the Bronx?”
“Unless your mom has moved without letting you know. She wanted me to tell you that you should visit more often.”
“Did she mention that I’m going up there next week?”
Eddie laughs. “It must have slipped her mind.” He thanks the bartender as he leaves a drink in front of him. “You remember the hills outside of the city, where we used to go searching for dragons?”
“What’s Alex interested in that far north?”
He shrugs. “He joked about building a castle up there, but mostly he wanted me to survey the border.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t say anything specific.” Another laugh. “It’s his kingdom, Rafi. Probably good that he knows where it ends.”
“That border has been there for centuries. Since before the Muñozes even took the throne. Why send you all that way to look at it instead of having one of the knights in the Bronx do it?”
“Don’t know. If I did, I’d tell you, you know that.”
And he does know, although that knowledge isn’t as comforting as Eddie probably intends it to be. Alex sending him and Eddie out on errands isn’t anything new, but it was a lot more common back when he was only the prince and didn’t have the King’s Guard at his beck and call, not to mention every other knight in the kingdom, if he felt the need. Those missions had never been secrets though, and the idea that Alex is sending Eddie out to the edges of the kingdom without telling him why, that he’s keeping something from both of them, makes Rafael feel off-balance.
“You’re here with Benson’s squad?” Eddie asks, glancing back over his shoulder, and Rafael nods. “Before I left, Alex said he was going to offer you a spot with them.”
“He did. Even though it’s not really his spot to offer.”
“That why you turned him down?”
“Who said I turned him down?”
“I’ve known you a long time, Rafi, nobody needed to actually say it. But Alex told me when I got back. You really think Benson would be against you joining?”
“No.” Honestly, he doubts Olivia has ever even considered it either way. Her complaints about being undermanned seem to have more to do with SVU tradition than any desire for actual reinforcements. And even if she did want to fill out her squad, he doesn’t think she’d want him, especially because nothing would really change. He trains with them, patrols with them, and hangs out with them, and officially joining the squad would just make things more complicated in both the short and long term. “I don’t need a squad.”
“Well, it’s good to know there’s people who’ve got your back either way.” He grabs his drink off of the bar and nods at Rafael. “See you around, Rafi.”
“See you.”
Rafael watches him rejoin his squadmates, swallowing against the uneasy feeling settling into his stomach. Something is going on with Alex, something he’s keeping from Rafael, maybe from everyone else as well, all his guards and advisors, and he’s roped Eddie in without telling him anything either. He doesn’t know what Alex could possibly be so interested in at the border, but maybe while he’s visiting his mother he can go up there himself and figure it out, or at least enough of it that he can get Alex to talk to him about whatever it is.
Rafael sighs, pushing away from the bar to go say his good nights to the squad. He doubts he’ll be very good company for the rest of the night.
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“Caballero del sol!” calls his grandmother from her spot on the porch, and Rafael shakes his head as he walks up the steps of the little steps of the house she and his mother share.
“Abuelita,” he says, trying and failing to suppress a smile as he leans down to kiss her cheek and let her hug him, “You know there haven’t been any Sun Knights in decades.”
“And there will be again, once your king finally decides to sort it all out.”
“Don’t let Mami hear you talking like that.” He settles into the chair next to her. “Where is she?”
“Getting groceries. She should be back soon.”
“She’s back now.”
Rafael jumps up to help his mother, but she only lets him take two bags, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“You’re late, Rafi.”
“I’m sorry, Mami. There was something I had to take care of and I didn’t want to leave again once I’d gotten here, but it took longer than I thought it would.”
It shouldn’t have, because the hills Alex is so interested in haven’t changed all that much in the decades since they were kids running all over them in search of dragons. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, Alex himself too busy to get away to visit so he’d sent Eddie instead, and he’d spent far too long waiting for something deeper to be revealed to him when all he’d really done was waste a few hours of his life and risk his mother’s wrath.
“I got here in time for dinner, sí?”
“You got here in time to help with dinner,” his mother corrects, at least letting Rafael open the door for her instead of trying to do it herself with all the bags she’s carrying, and he holds it open for his grandmother to shuffle in after her, reaching up a slightly shaky hand to pat his cheek as she passes.
He moves between the kitchen and the living room, helping his mother with the dinner preparations and his grandmother with the puzzle she’s working on, content to let the two of them do most of the talking. It’s not until he stands up after sliding the dishes into the oven that he realizes his mother has noticed, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, giving him a pointed look.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, or do I have to guess?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He sighs. “There’s something bothering Alex, or something he’s planning, and he’s not telling me about it.”
“Maybe he’s just waiting for the right time. Or maybe there isn’t actually anything to worry about.”
Rafael shakes his head. “He’s sending Eddie off on missions without telling him why. I keep walking in on him having hushed conversations that stop the minute I walk in. There’s something he’s hiding from me. I know we’re not- I know things aren’t how they used to be, but still.”
“He’s king now, Rafi. There are probably going to be things he just can’t tell you.”
Rafael swallows against the lump in his throat, but he doesn’t know if it’s the thought that that might be true or that it might not that’s causing it, and pushes away from the counter where he’d been leaning next to her. “Did you need anything else for dinner? I think I’ll go help abuelita with her puzzle.”
“Rafi…”
“It’s fine, Ma. Like you said, maybe it’s nothing.”
He wishes it really was that easy to shake off.
---------------
“Planning a trip? Didn’t you just get back from the Bronx?”
Rafael looks up from the maps spread in front of him to find Olivia smiling at him, and he can’t help returning it.
“It’s research.” He glances around the library. “Coming over to my side of the argument?”
She laughs. “You wish. Noah needs some more books.” She tilts her head towards where Rafael can see Noah making his way down one of the shorter shelves of children’s books.
“Well, one out of two Bensons isn’t too bad.”
Another laugh, and she takes the chair across the table from him. “You’re researching the Bronx?”
“The border north of the city, actually. The king’s sent a few people up there to survey it recently.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Hence the research. Thought maybe I could figure out what has caught his attention.”
“Huh.” Olivia shifts one of the maps towards her to get a better look. “Fin would tell you that there’s only two reasons that kings suddenly start showing an interest in their kingdom’s borders. They’re going to change them, or they’re going to cross them. Usually both, since other kingdoms don’t generally let you move their borders without permission.”
Rafael feels the blood drain from his face, even as he says, “Alex- Alex wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t he? You know better than anyone that he’s an ambitious guy. Expanding the kingdom would be much bigger than anything his father or his grandfather ever did.”
She’s not wrong about any of that, but Olivia doesn’t know Alex like he does. She hasn’t known him since they were five, hasn’t listened to him talk for years about how he wants to be a good king, to uphold the legacy of his family, to do something great. And this…
The kingdom hasn’t seen a war in nearly thirty years, and even then they hadn’t been the aggressors. And a war now would be… Rafael can’t even imagine it, not really, and nothing he can imagine is anything he’s willing to pay for... what? A few hundred square miles of territory? A castle in the Bronx?
“I don’t…” he starts, but he doesn’t know what he actually wants to say, and he’s relieved when he notices Noah making his way over towards them carrying a stack of books.
“Hey, buddy.”
“Hey, Uncle Rafa.” He slides the stack onto the table in front of Olivia. “I want these ones, please.”
“You sure you want all of those?” she asks, and Noah nods, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little, “I think maybe you’re spending too much time with your Uncle Rafa.”
“No such thing,” Rafael says, managing a smile, “Right, amigo?” Noah nods again even more enthusiastically.
“Alright, we better check those out so we can get home and you can get started on reading them.” Olivia picks up half the stack of books and hands the other half to Noah, lingering by the table for a few moments as he heads towards the front desk. “You’ll let me know? What you find out, what I can do?”
“Of course.”
Making that promise somehow feels like the easiest thing he’s done in days.