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Argo can’t quite shake the concern as he finishes his rounds through the city. It’s far too quiet. It’s been almost two weeks now and he hasn’t seen or heard anything from his nemesis since then. He’s not worried about Fitzroy though – he’s on duty after all, he’ll worry about his friend once he gets home. But even from a professional standpoint Argo has every right to feel uneasy. If the villain disappears from public notice for as long as Fitzroy has, every hero worth his salt should be on high alert. Who knows what schemes are being cooked up in the meantime?
If he’s (unprofessionally) honest though, Argo hopes that that’s all there is to it. He hopes that Fitz knows what he’s doing and that he’s not letting the villainy slide too much. He doesn’t know the specifics of Fitz’s contract of course, but he’s pretty sure there’s a certain quota to be met and Fitz, who’s never gotten over his knightly pride and his aversion to proper villainy despite having worked as a villain for three years now, has always kept his machinations to a minimum. He’s never been quiet for this long though, and Argo can’t help but wonder how he plans to make rent without having any spectacular deeds to show for it.
It makes Argo worry that it’s his fault. He hasn’t seen Fitz since he kissed him in the middle of a fight on the rooftops, of course Argo worries it’s his fault. Fitzroy had seemed enthusiastic enough back then, but maybe Argo misinterpreted him or maybe he’s regretting it in hindsight. If he was as fine with it as Argo had thought he was, he’d have come out of his lair at least once since then, right? Maybe he’s plotting Argo’s demise for reasons entirely unrelated to their respective professions. Or maybe Argo is flattering himself and the kiss isn’t the reason for Fitzroy’s sudden absence from the picture. Which of course makes him worry about what else might have happened to Fitz.
He ends his nightly patrol none the wiser and without finding any signs of villainy, as usual. And when he finally climbs into his hammock, in spite of his exhaustion from the day, his worries keep him up for a long time.
--
It goes on like that for another few days and Argo is seriously starting to wonder if he should contact the kingdom's department for heroic and villainous activity or maybe even HOG about it. If Fitz has disappeared, they might know where he is, and even if they don’t, he can hardly do his job if there are no villainous schemes to thwart.
But then suddenly, he sees him again. Argo is on the market, stocking up on fresh fruit when the flash of a bright red cloak draws his attention to where a familiar figure is just disappearing around the corner. Argo nearly drops his groceries in his haste to run after Fitzroy, but when he rounds the same corner he saw Fitz take moments ago, Fitz is still standing in the street, about to step through a door leading away from the street into an apartment block. Argo nearly crashes into him.
“Fitzroy!” he exclaims.
Fitz nearly jumps out of his skin and yelps.
“Fitz, it’s me!”
“Argo! Jesus, don’t scare me like that!”
“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t expect you here”
“At my home?”
“I- uh, yeah I guess that makes sense” Wait. “You live here?”
“Yes?” Fitzroy replies. “Or wait, let me check. I think this just looks like my block and I’ve been going to the wrong one for three years. I actually live on the other end of town and I didn’t even know it!”
“Hey! No need to be a sarcastic jerk about it!” Argo protests, but he’s smiling fondly. He’s missed talking to Fitzroy outside of fights. “It’s not like you know where I live!”
“Fair” Fitzroy concedes. “So, what brings you here?”
“I was worried about you, Fitz. I haven’t seen you since… It’s been a long time since our last fight, and I didn’t know if anything had happened to you”
Immediately, Fitzroy freezes up and his relaxed demeanour falls away, as if he had been reminded of something unpleasant.
“Oh yes, that!” he says, and his voice is slightly too loud like it always is when he’s making up some bullshit on the fly. “I was- uh- busy! Yes, lots of stuff to do. No rest for the wicked like they say and I’m, like, professionally wicked, so to speak”
Argo stops himself from wincing. Looks like he did have something to do with Fitz’ sudden absence from the picture after all.
“Look, Fitz, about our kiss…”
“What about it? Nothing to it, right? Nothing at all! Everything’s fine!”
“O-kay” Clearly Fitz isn’t up to talking about it. “Sure, everything’s fine. Just maybe make sure to plot something again sometime soon, or we might both lose our jobs.”
“Yes, no, you are absolutely right. Thank you for your concern Argo, I will be back to my nefarious ways shortly”
“Great! That- That’s great!”
“Nothing to worry about. Everything is okay”
“Yeah, yeah, totally! Everything’s great”
“Yeees totally going great”
“Okay then… See you soon, I guess?”
“Yeah, so soon, you won’t believe it! Goodbye, Argo”
“Bye, Fitz” Argo says, but Fitz has already closed the door behind him.
Argo is left standing in the street, still somewhat reeling from that mess of a conversation.
“Well, that was awkward” he says to himself before grabbing his groceries and making his way back home.
--
Everything is not great. Definitely not great.
To be fair, Fitzroy has made his comeback as a villain with an admittedly pretty clever attempt at a bank robbery that has led to a spectacular chase through the streets of the city and culminated in a big fight in the town centre. Their livelihoods should be safe like that. There are, however, still a few things that need to be addressed.
For instance, the fact that the awkwardness between them is still palpable. The fighting helps a bit; it’s easy to slip into their usual quick witted banter when they’re in the familiarity of a fight and their quips are to some extent part of the job anyway, but there are these… pauses, sometimes, when there is a short break in the fast-paced rhythm of their duel or when they get too close to each other, where Fitz will tense up and Argo will curse himself for not knowing how to reassure his oldest friend.
Fitzroy clearly is uncomfortable with the situation since they shared that kiss during their fight, but he also is absolutely unwilling to talk about it or to relay exactly what it is that makes him so uneasy. Argo would do anything to help Fitz find his footing again.
And then there is the fact that Argo absolutely wants to kiss Fitzroy again. It’s stupid of course. He’s wanted it for so long that it feels like a matter of course by now. Wanting to kiss Fitzroy Maplecourt has long since become a perpetual state of being and he has learned how to conceal his yearning very early on in his time at Wiggenstaff’s. He knows how to reign in his feelings and be Fitz’ friend, and he loves him dearly even if they never have anything other than friendship.
Not kissing Fitzroy Maplecourt despite wanting to is an art Argo has brought to perfection, and it has served him well so far, until that night almost a month ago when he was so sure that Fitzroy felt the same. His heart aches every time he thinks back to it. Fitzroy had been so beautiful back then, grinning breathlessly and calling his face pretty and kissing like he never wanted to do anything else. Like he had wanted it for as long as Argo had.
Argo remembers Fitzroy’s eyes painfully clearly, and he struggles to believe that he’d imagined the affection and longing and joy he’d seen reflected in them. But then why is Fitzroy acting the way he is? He clearly isn’t interested in acknowledging what happened and so there is no way to figure out where to go from here.
Argo is fine with not making anything out of this. If romancing Argo isn’t something Fitz is interested in, Argo is more than happy to stay the guy’s friend forever. But it’s killing him not to know. To have seen all his own feelings mirrored in Fitzroy’s eyes, to have hoped that maybe, they might be something different from before and to then have this hope yanked away from him without having the faintest clue as to what it was that changed Fitz’ mind so suddenly. Argo is at a loss.
--
Time passes. At first Argo hopes things will go back to normal eventually, that Fitz will get over whatever it is that made him so awkward if Argo doesn’t mention it again, but that hope dies fast. Fitz is on guard around Argo the way he has never been since their first few weeks sharing a dorm at school, before they found their footing with each other and figured out how to settle into a careful kind of friendship that allowed for more than distrustful glances and snide comments.
He hasn’t reverted back to his arrogant façade of the nobleman that he used to wear around school, and Argo should be glad about that, but it honestly only serves to highlight the fact of how guarded he is in any other way. Fitzroy almost seems afraid, and that is something that just doesn’t fit with the brave knight he spent so long trying to convince everyone he was. It doesn’t fit with the recklessly adventurous person he is.
And so, Argo makes a decision. Something has to happen, and he is going to get his friend back, even if it means having to break into his evil lair.
--
“Just leave it on the doorstep, it’s fine!” Fitzroy’s voice yells through the door after Argo knocks.
“Fitz, it’s me!” Argo clears the misunderstanding. Something clatters to the floor in the apartment behind the door. In the moment of silence that follows, Argo fears that he’ll just be ignored. He’s sure that Fitz regrets having made it obvious that he’s at home. But then Fitz calls out again.
“Just a moment, Argo!”
Fitz is so caught up in the need to pretend everything is normal that he has no choice but to let him in, Argo concludes from that. Leaving Argo outside when it’s clear that he’s home would be an admission that something is off. As if it isn’t clear enough as is.
Eventually, Fitzroy does open the door.
“Argo! So good to see you! What gives- To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? Come in, come in!” His voice is a bit too loud again. The false cheer does not do a good enough job of hiding his nervousness to fool Argo.
“Oh, you know”, Argo answers as he enters the apartment, “I was in the neighbourhood. Just thought I’d check in on a friend.” He isn’t sure he sounds as natural as he’d like, either, but it’s not like Fitz has any right to judge, so it’s fine.
Fitzroy has always been remarkably good at bullshitting his way through most situations. His ridiculous lies always just believable enough to let slide and whatever improvisation he’s come up with delivered with just enough confidence to be given the benefit of the doubt. He hides his untruths behind high walls of charisma and flourish, but Argo has seen it work too many times to not see right through them.
The friendly hospitality of offering him a drink is a lie and Argo can tell all too well that the seeming normalcy of sitting down in the living room to chat about everything and nothing only serves to conceal whatever it is that’s wrong with Fitzroy. It’s almost painfully easy to recognise when he’s hiding something, once you stop letting yourself be blinded by his shining knight persona.
There isn’t any literal sweat that Argo can see as Fitzroy answers Argo’s question of how he’s doing with some random anecdote about some cleaning service that couldn’t even use the right kind soap to wash his pants or whatever, but if he had to, he’d still describe Fitzroy as sweating profusely right now. Argo desperately wants to put him at ease somehow, but he has no idea how that would even work. He also has no idea how to broach the subject without making Fitzroy bolt the second he opens his mouth.
“Fitz” Argo says when Fitzroy’s story comes to an end. He tries to make it as soft as possible, but Fitzroy still…
He doesn’t flinch, really, but it’s a near thing. Like he knew it was coming but still wasn’t really prepared for it. Argo just wants to get this over with.
“Fitz, look, I love you, okay? You’re this amazing guy who carved himself a place at knight school in spite of all odds and then did it all over again at Wiggenstaff’s when that dream didn’t work out. You made it all the way to being a professional villain, and you’re pretty damn good at it if I may say so as your opponent. You’re frickin’ amazing and I’m so lucky to be your friend and to have been your friend for all these years already and, like, if there is any way, and you haven’t grown really tired of me already, I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want things to be really awkward between us and I don’t want us to not be friends anymore just because of one stupid kiss.”
Fitz looks like he’s about to interject, but Argo really can’t let him. He needs to say this all in one piece, or he knows he’s going to jumble everything and end up not having said everything he needs to. So he just continues.
“And don’t get me wrong here, the kiss was fantastic, and I would really, really like to do it again, but it’s still just kissing, you know? I know it has clearly been bothering you, and we can just forget it and never talk about that night again if that would help you, you know, be the old Fitzroy again? But I just- I need you to talk to me. And to tell me what I can do to make things less awkward between us. I want to fix this, but I need to know what’s wrong first. So, please?”
Waiting for Fitz to say something feels a lot more like he’s waiting for a judge to pronounce his death sentence than he ever should when talking to his oldest friend.
“I, uh- I- “, Fitzroy stutters incoherently. He looks a bit shaken for a moment, before he collects himself and straightens up a bit. “Well, first of all, thank you. I also think I am doing a pretty good job of being a villain”
Argo wants to grab him by the shoulders to try and shake the honesty out of him.
“But, you know, uh… Quella the Quizzenberry, right?”
This throws Argo a little. “You’ve read The Adventures of Larry the Lime?” he asks dumbly.
It startles a little laugh out of Fitz. He shakes his head.
“Nah, but you spent so much time talking to me about it in school that I think I still know the whole story by heart.
But anyway, Larry the Lime thinks the world of Quella, right? He’s always there supporting her, and telling her how amazing she is, even when she feels like a fraud and like she doesn’t deserve it. And I know that she’s canonically in love with Beth the Beet, but if she wasn’t, and she was in love with Larry instead? Wouldn’t that be kind of unfair?”
Argo scrambles to keep up with the sudden analogy to his old favourite book series. He’s not sure he follows.
“…unfair, how?”
Fitzroy sighs in frustration.
“Larry is always just there when she needs him, and he’d probably do anything for her, right? So if she goes and falls in love with him because of all his support and because she never wants to be without him, that’s really selfish right? ‘Cause she’s asking him to stay with her even though she knows she doesn’t deserve it. And he deserves someone better.”
Fitzroy is decidedly looking anywhere but at Argo, and Argo wants to shake him again. He hadn’t realised that Fitz had never properly worked through his self-worth issues.
“But isn’t that Larry’s decision as well?” he asks. “He wouldn’t believe in her so much if he didn’t think she deserved it, and he wouldn’t be there for her all the time if he didn’t want to. ‘Cause I think he really likes her and he would be really sad if she pushed him away just because she thinks she doesn’t deserve to be happy.”
“So you’re saying that Quella has a chance with Larry? Seriously?”
Argo laughs. “I’m saying that I used to be a huge Quarry shipper back in the day. I wrote a lot of fanfic where Larry was hopelessly pining for Queen Quella the Quizzenberry, who was always just out of his reach”
It breaks Argo’s heart, the way the hope on Fitzroy’s face is warring with a series of other emotions.
“Oh” Fitz says.
“Yeah” Argo agrees. “So, can we stop talking in analogies now? I’m getting kinda tired of calling myself Larry”
Fitz laughs, although he still looks a bit uneasy. “Not my fault you always talked so much about him.”
“I still can’t believe you remember all those things I was rambling about”
“I really liked the stories you told about Larry the Lime” Fitzroy says, and he finally turns to look at Argo for the first time in what feels like forever. “I wanted to read them, but books and I were never really friends.”
Argo laughs. “If they ever make a movie adaption, we have to go watch it together”
“Yes!” Fitzroy exclaims. He seems to finally be at ease again. “Thundermen movie night! Just like back at Wiggenstaff’s! We can invite the Firbolg too.”
It’s relaxing, to see Fitz return to his usual behaviour instead of the cagey avoidance of the last couple of weeks. It pulls a fond sigh and a smile out of Argo. But he feels like he still has to get a definitive answer.
Argo takes Fitz’ hand and makes sure to meet his eyes for this part. “I really like you Fitzroy. I have for a long time, and if you like me too and you want to try being together, that would make me really really happy. And if you don’t, that’s fine too. I hope we can still be friends either way. But I kinda need you to give me a non-metaphoric answer here, buddy, or I’m going to go insane.”
Fitz laughs. “And we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? Mad hero doesn’t really make for a good look.”
Argo raises an eyebrow. Fitzroy continues. “Yes, I suppose that which you suggest is something that we might both be interested in, I believe. If it is as you say and you would be into that, so to speak, then I would be amenable to-“
“Fitzroy” Argo interrupts “please”
“Alright, yes, I want to date you! I’ve wanted to kiss you forever and I’ve had a crush on you since Wiggenstaff’s and I’ve never had the guts to admit it because you are way too sweet and you deserve someone just as sweet and you’re also so hot? Like I totally only lured you onto the rooves that night because I wanted to ogle you in the moonlight – which was so worth it, by the way – and now I’ve lost track of where I was going with this, but yes, I really do wanna be with you”
Fitz is staring, wide eyed. He looks deflated, like a balloon that just spilled out all the air it was holding inside. Like he’s been holding this inside himself for a long time. And Argo just wants to kiss him forever.
“Oh Fitz” he says softly and with all his love. “That's really all I ever needed you to say”
And then he gently pulls Fitz into a hug that he falls into immediately. And with his face safely hidden in the crook of Argo’s neck, Fitzroy finally relaxes for real.