Work Text:
“You are a lovely cook, habibi,” Joe praises. He’s stuffed, but he still drags a finger through the last remains of sauce to get one more taste. “I don’t deserve you.”
“I’m sure you do,” Nicky said with a slight laugh. Knowing Joe as well as he does, he takes his mostly empty dish away with a wink and heads to the kitchen to do dishes.
“Let me help you clean up—” Joe insists, as he always does, but Nicky ignores his offer.
“I have been gone a week for work and I missed you,” he says. “Let me take care of my husband. You can help do dishes tomorrow.”
Joe grabs Nicky’s arm and squeezes it in affectionate thanks before Nicky disappears into the kitchen. His spot at the table has the perfect vantage point to watch Nicky at the sink and dishwasher, a wonderful view of his ass. Joe’s fairly certain he knows this and it’s half the reason Nicky insists on doing the dishes alone, so that he can tempt Joe with the gentle sway of his hips as he works.
It is a lovely temptation. It would be rude of Joe not to enjoy it.
Nicky’s nearly done the dishes when Joe gets a message on his phone. He sighs, perfectly willing to ignore it, until he gets a few more messages in rapid succession. Since his husband is in front of him, clearly not texting him, the only other people who would so urgently demand his attention are…
Joe pulls out his phone and curses under his breath when he sees the alert.
Lykon: Booker has been captured
Lykon: I’ve arranged for a prisoner exchange. Will you be able to handle it?
Lykon: It’s outside of DC, close to your home. Would be less suspicious if it were you.
Lykon: We’d have to give up the Scythian.
He rubs a hand over his forehead and considers what to do. Not about Booker—they have no choice, he would not leave his fellow spy in danger—but about Nicky. Nicky only just got back in town, and it’s not often that Joe’s the one forced to disappear for work. It was part of why he urged Nicky to settle near DC; it allows Joe to travel between the capital and the Pentagon with ease as well as to meet any contacts at one of the local airports.
The idea of leaving to complete such a risky mission is not a real bother; it is his annoyance that he has to cancel his week of uninterrupted time with his husband to do it.
Joe: You owe me.
Lykon: Booker owes you. Me, too. You know how long I’ve worked to get the Scythian for Copley? Too fucking long to just hand her over.
That earns a slight laugh from Joe. It’s been nearly a decade of trying to track down the assassin, and Lykon was quite pleased that he’d managed it only a few months ago.
Joe: I’ll talk to Booker about the appropriate times to get captured.
Lykon: There are no appropriate times. Tell him that. Tell him next time he’s on his own.
Joe: Liar.
Lykon: Yes but don’t let *him* know that.
Joe: I absolutely will. Arrange the exchange and send me the details, I’ll take care of it.
And with that, he puts his phone on silent and sneaks into the kitchen behind his husband, intent on getting his favorite type of dessert.
~ ~ ~
He doesn’t bring up the potential trip to Nicky that night or the next, maybe because he hopes Booker will make it out on his own. It’s a nice fantasy, anyway, to think he has the time alone with his husband without a looming separation hanging over them once again.
When he finally gets a time and location from Lykon, it takes him a good day to work up the nerve to say something. Not that he expects anger from Nicky, just resigned disappointment. He knows this will be Nicky’s reaction because it’s a feeling he knows all too well: Nicky’s busy work schedule, his frequent trips out of state or even abroad or his long hours working in his office alone… Joe loves his husband, and equally loves how much Nicky enjoys his work, but the time apart is time Joe mourns every time.
Even when it is Joe’s work keeping them apart, Joe is resigned in his own disappointment.
“Habibi…” Joe starts, a plea for understanding already in his voice. When he actually sees the grim frown on Nicky’s face, he stops short. “My heart, what’s wrong?”
“I know I only just got back…” Nicky starts nervously, and it so echoes Joe’s own thoughts that he stands there in shock for a moment.
He only realizes belatedly that Nicky expects an answer.
“Yes,” he agrees. “Only a couple days.”
“So you understand that I am loath to leave again,” Nicky says, the words coming out in a rush. “I don’t like to leave you, ever, but certainly not so soon. If there were something else I could do, someone else I could trust with this—”
“Nicky, you’re worrying me. What’s wrong?”
Nicky looks perfectly devastated as he says, “I have to take a job out of town. I would have to leave tonight and would not be back for at least a couple days.”
Joe blinks in surprise. Slowly, Nicky’s words click into place at the same time he realizes his own fixed schedule for the next few days.
“Really?” he says eagerly.
“Are you happy to get rid of me so soon?” Nicky asks with wide eyes.
“No! I am not— Nicolo ,” he scolds. He sees Nicky’s eyes light up in amusement, and he suddenly realizes he’s being teased. He takes Nicky’s hand in his, kisses the knuckles to reassure them both. “I would never try to be away from you, my heart, as you well know.”
“But…” Nicky prompts.
“It is only… Sebastian needs help at the museum and I think I am stuck helping him regardless. I am pleased that your trip coincides with his move, so I can be a good coworker and friend to him and not have to miss out on showering my husband with the love and affection he deserves.”
“So you’re not angry at me, then?” Nicky asks more seriously. “I would not normally schedule something so soon after returning home—”
“I wish the circumstances of our reunion allowed more time.” Again, he kisses the back of Nicky’s hand to ground him. “But I would rather if you must go, it’s when I would not have been able to see you much anyway.”
Then he’s graced with one of Nicky’s shy, indulgent smiles, and Joe feels his heart stutter in his chest.
“You truly aren’t mad?” Nicky asks with such relief that Joe wants to tell Booker and Nicky’s job to fuck off so they can have the time deserve that they both crave. “I could try to cancel—”
“If you’re not mad I’ve been trying all day to find an opportunity to tell you I would be busy tomorrow, then I cannot be mad at you.”
“You know…” Nicky says playfully, his hand tightening around Joe’s and pulling him backwards towards the bedroom. “I don’t have to leave until the evening…”
They make full use of their remaining hours together, and Joe is pleased that they have preemptively made up for their impending time apart. It will make their reunion all the sweeter.
~ ~ ~
The Scythian glowers at Joe. He knows that she might look like she’s subdued, but he watches closely enough to know she is constantly testing her bindings, checking their surroundings, looking at Joe for weaknesses. He is on guard the whole time; he will be relieved when this is over, because then that will at least eliminate the constant anxiety of hoping he can anticipate one of the most deadly assassins in the business.
He still marvels that Lykon ever caught her… and part of him worries that giving her up might make their rivalry worse. This isn’t the type of woman you capture twice .
His thoughts are interrupted by the distant sound of a door opening. The warehouse they’d chosen for the exchange is filthy, delipidated from years of neglect; when the front door opens, the whole building shakes with it despite it being rooms away.
Instantly Joe’s tension sky rockets. His nerves are like steel—he knows he won’t fail Booker or Lykon or himself (or worse, through his own capture, injury or death, fail Nicky)—but he’s on alert for anything . He expects to be betrayed, for this whole operation to go to shit, and he thinks that’s why he’s survived in this business so long. Always expecting betrayal goes a long way in making sure you aren't betrayed.
He has his gun trained on the door, trading off some accuracy by only keeping one hand on it so he can keep another hand on the Scythian’s cuffs. Just to keep her honest, or as honest as an assassin can be.
Booker gets pushed into the room first, a black bag over his head and tied up far more than he deserves. Booker is a great spy, an excellent forger, but only a decent fighter. The idea that he might slip his bindings is almost laughable.
The Scythian tenses slightly, muscles rigid like she expects a blow. Whether she thinks she’ll be on the receiving end or the one doing the hitting is unclear; Joe adjusts his grip and keeps his focus on the door.
A man walks in, something in his gait and build familiar, but he’s still in shadow. Like Joe, this man is a professional and won’t needlessly give away his identity to an enemy. Just because they have an uneasy truce right now, it won’t last beyond this night, this one mutually beneficial prisoner exchange. If they meet again anywhere else, there will be blood.
Following the mystery man’s lead, he shoves the Scythian forward. She lurches and just barely manages to keep her balance as she stumbles blindly towards the door. When she’s halfway across the room, the mystery man nudges Booker with his foot to urge him to his feet. He probably expects a double cross, but again, Joe thinks he’s still in more danger from the Scythian than this man ever could be from Booker.
When both prisoners are safely with their comrade, blindfolds shaken loose now that they’re in the safety of shadows, Joe takes a moment to appraise the assassin duo. The Scythian and her associates are notorious, the type that rarely leave a trace other than their own handiwork; it’s rare to be so close to one never mind two of them, and Joe takes the opportunity. He appraises them, takes in their body language, the silent strength in every movement. It’s impressive, and if it wouldn’t likely end with his death, he’d like to see them in action up close.
The man, he thinks, must be the Genoan. He’d assumed for a while the Scythian was a man, so he hadn’t wanted to assume anything about her partners, but he recognizes something of a sniper in this man.
He recognizes a great deal, though he can’t quite place any of it. Perhaps they’ve crossed paths on jobs before, unknowingly frequenting the same cities as they worked. He knows the Genoan was in Malta at the same time he was several years ago when he first met his Nicky, and he curiously tries to imagine this shadow in a cafe or at the market haggling for fruit.
The picture becomes murky in his head, Nicky always replacing any attempts to put the assassin there instead.
That’s why he doesn’t make the connection at first when the man speaks. His head is already filled with Nicky, he’s not even startled to accidentally impose his husband’s voice over this man’s.
“Thank you,” the Genoan says in a thick Italian accent. “It’s not often these things go so easily.”
It’s Booker’s stiffness, the rigid line of his back as he stops working off his cuffs, that makes him understand the similarity is not in his head.
“Nicolo?” Joe asks in bewilderment.
The man jerks like he’s been slapped. A good assassin, one trained in secrecy, would either kill Joe then and there or flee. Instead, the man steps forward into the moonlight cascading through the window into the center of the room.
“Yusuf?” he asks, Nicky’s features now crystallizing in the darkness before he’s roughly jerked backwards by the Scythian. She hisses something at him in Italian and forcefully yanks him out the door. Even so, he can still hear Nicky’s strangled pleas of, “No, let me go. It’s Yusuf , my Joe—” trailing behind them.
Joe meanwhile is frozen to his spot, seeing and hearing everything but not feeling a damn thing. He couldn’t move if he wanted to, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but stare at the empty spot that recently held his husband when it should have held an enemy.
Only once the warehouse is heavy with silence, the front door slammed shut as the assassins make their escape, does Booker reach forward to place a hand on Joe’s shoulder. It’s enough to startle him into motion, to make his feet move forward in a too late attempt to stop Nicky from leaving.
Booker holds him back.
“They’ll kill you,” Booker says with no small amount of pity.
Joe’s mind and heart absolutely rebel against the very idea that Nicky would hurt him. “Nicky would never —”
But Booker just shakes his head, eyes sad. “Even if it’s not Nicky who does it, that Scythian’s a cold-hearted bitch. She’ll kill you for him if she has to.”
“What are you saying?” He’s angry now, angry because he knows Booker’s right and he can’t stand to think what this means. “Are you saying I can’t ever see my husband again? That if we’re ever in the same room again, one of us is a dead man?”
Booker’s silence is answer enough.
“No.” He rounds on Booker and pokes a finger at his chest angrily. “No, I refuse to believe that. Life is not so cruel as to bring us together only to force us apart.”
“It isn’t life that’s cruel here,” Booker whispers. “It’s men. Men are cruel. He’s an assassin. You’re not exactly a saint, either. You know there’s only one way this goes from here. We’re on opposite sides… Knowing each other the way you do… Tell me how you’re not a liability to him and vice versa. Tell me how this works out now that you know.”
“I am not a liability,” Joe huffs as he reaches down to grab the gun he didn’t even know he dropped, “because I would never hurt him.”
“You had a gun on him,” Booker reminds him. He gestures to the long abandoned doorway, right where Nicky stood and right where Joe aimed his rifle. “You would’ve shot him without question if he’d tried something.”
“Because I didn’t know —!”
“I’m just saying, you say never but I saw a maybe a few minutes ago. Maybes tend not to stay maybes forever. You gotta figure out what you’re gonna do—”
“I will not kill him.”
There’s no sign of surprise on Booker’s face at this. “Yeah, but that doesn’t make it safe to see him. You can stay at my place for a bit, we can talk to Copley—”
“I am going home , Booker,” Joe says firmly. “I am going home to wait for my husband so we can talk about this.”
Booker nods. It’s like a light goes out in his eyes, like he’d hoped Joe would listen to reason and now that hope’s been extinguished. Joe can see Booker mentally distancing himself, putting up his walls to protect himself from when he gets the news of Joe’s death. To Booker, this is clearly the only possible outcome now.
“He won’t kill me,” Joe says. His voice sounds a little desperate, even to his own ears. Who is he trying to convince?
“Good, because I don’t know how many more funerals I can go to,” Booker mutters under his breath. “You won’t come to my place, you at least gonna let me stay with you at yours?”
Whatever Nicky’s feeling right now, Joe imagines it’s not unlike the lead brick in his stomach right now. He sees it clearly in his mind’s eye: Nicky coming back to the house to talk things out, his own worries and concerns taking shape when he sees Booker there on the couch, armed to the teeth.
That’s how this ends in blood, Joe’s sure of it.
“No.”
“No?” Booker rubs a hand down his face and looks like he prays for the patience to deal with Joe’s suicidal plans.
“I will be fine.”
Booker’s face becomes hard. He never did like being the one to give bad news, always left that to Lykon or Copley. He’d hung back on the sidelines during Joe’s wedding, played the role of best man and only brought up his own disastrous marriage once. A warning about how the life of a spy doesn’t work with marital bliss, no matter how in love the couple may be.
It’s that same look on his face now, and it makes Joe wince despite his own resolve and assurance.
“Only if he doesn’t come back.”
That makes Joe’s heart skip a beat.
“What do you mean?” Joe asks.
“I mean,” Booker says slowly, measuring out each word, “that you’ll survive this if Nicky never comes back. And think about it. He knows who you are, what you are. He’s having this same conversation with the Scythian right now, talking about you and how to stay alive. If he loves you half as much as you think he does, and admittedly I think he does, then he’s arguing to keep you alive, too. And the only way that’s happening is if he doesn’t go back. If he stays the hell away from you for both of your sakes.”
Admittedly, this possibility didn’t occur to him. He’d just assumed that they would see each other again, that they’d each have the chance to explain themselves and work something out.
To think that he might actually never see his Nicolo again…
He doesn’t realize he’s having a panic attack until Booker’s easing him to the ground and talking him through it.
“Breathe, in and out, that’s it…”
It’s a struggle, but Joe finally finds his equilibrium again.
“If he doesn’t show up,” Booker offers reluctantly, “Copley can find him… We can figure something out… It’ll be okay…”
It’s a mantra he repeats the whole drive back home. He tells it to himself, to Booker when they part ways at Joe’s place, to the empty place on Nicky’s side of the bed.
We can figure something out. It’ll be okay.
If only he could believe it.
~ ~ ~
A week passes with no word, no sign of Nicky. Each day feels like a blow, each passing hour alone slowly squeezes the air from his lungs. He refuses to leave the house, though, in case he misses Nicky’s return. Because there will be a return, if only because he doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself if there isn’t.
If the last time he saw his husband was in an abandoned warehouse, standing on opposite sides of a line they hadn’t known was drawn between them.
When there’s a knock at the door, he knows it can’t be Nicky, but he excitedly rushes to answer. There is no one there, just a manilla folder tucked behind the planter on the porch. He sighs, recognizing Copley’s neat handwriting instantly.
NICOLO AL-KAYSANI AKA THE GENOAN
Does he want to know?
Or rather, does he want to know all this from Copley and not from Nicky himself?
He sits at their empty dining room table for a good hour, staring at the innocuous folder before he gives in to the temptation. He rips it open, pouring out a wealth of information about the man he thought he knew better than anyone alive.
His name is the truth, a small comfort, but most of what Joe thought he knew are lies. He is in fact from Genoa, despite claiming to Joe that he was from Tuscany. His parents are alive, not the sadly absent dead figures Joe knows them as; they are estranged from their son, at least, so perhaps there was some truth there. But on and on it goes. A different education, a different career, different skills and talents… On and on it goes, painting a picture of a man Joe still loves but now finds himself a stranger to.
It’s impressive, really. The list of kills… Nicky is clearly very good at what he does, and part of Joe thrills a little at this knowledge. It’s very sexy, in a very wrong way, and Joe craves seeing his husband in action… Except that’s probably a terrible idea.
Does Nicky have a packet like this about me? Old grainy photos trying to tie me to jobs? A resume of my skills as assembled by potential employers or aggravated enemies? Is he learning all the lies I wove in with my own truths, to protect myself and him? Is he just as curiously terrified to see me in action?
… Was our marriage just a matter of convenience to him? A cover that helped deflect suspicion away?
It’s exhausting, reading it all. It would take him a year to properly take it all in, to fully understand all the ways he and Nicky have misled each other. The worst thing, though, the cherry on top of his awful week is the page at the very bottom. Mostly redacted information, something intercepted by Copley since his frantic search to find as much as he can about Nicky in the last few days.
Even though it’s not all that a surprise to read it, it hurts Joe a little when he realizes what this last page.
It’s a hit that’s been taken out on Joe. One that apparently has been assigned to Nicky.
“Fuck,” he hisses as he crumples the paper in his hand and rests his forehead against his fist. This is it, then. The end of them as a couple. He was already worried how they might survive this, and now it’s so much more impossible.
He punches a hole in the wall in frustration as he storms from the room, his foul mood carrying him to his lonely bedroom. He’s not sure how much longer he can camp out here, a tomb to a life he can no longer have, but he throws on one of Nicky’s dirty sweaters and buries himself in the blankets. This tightly wrapped up, he could smell Nicky’s faint musk, feel his touch. Hell, after an hour of restless dozing, he swears he can hear Nicky’s voice.
“Joe? Joe, are you home…?”
Oh fuck.
Joe stumbles out of the bed gracelessly with more of a crash than he intended. Instinctively, he reaches for a weapon. A knife or a gun… but then he abandons the idea. What does it matter, anyway? Joe is a competent fighter, but he’s no trained assassin. If Nicky wants him dead, he’ll be dead.
There’s also the very real fact that he isn’t sure he could bring himself to hurt Nicky, even in self defense.
So with no plan, nothing but the sound of his heart pounding in his throat, Joe rushes to the living room.
“Nicolo, you came back—” He freezes when he catches sight of Nicky.
On their doorstep stands Nicky, covered in more blood than a single human could lose and still stay standing, looking like he escaped a meat grinder.
“Oh god,” Joe says, and then he’s on Nicky before he can think rationally about how smart it is to do so. He frets over his husband, inspecting him for injuries he has a growing suspicion he will never find. Whatever happened, Nicky was not the one who got hurt. “What happened?” he eventually asks. It’s only then that he can bring himself to look up and meet Nicky’s eye.
What he sees there is… both frightening and reassuring. He sees a cold-hearted man with steel in his eyes, a man wearing another’s blood and looking completely unphased by it; he also sees his husband’s amusement at his concern, as if this is no different from the time Nicky’s foot missed the back step on the porch and he fell awkwardly to the ground.
“They told me to kill you,” Nicky says with feigned nonchalance. It’s only because Joe knows him so well that he can hear the falseness to it.
Warily, Joe stiffens a little; he does not pull away though. “I know,” he admits. Then he frowns and adds, “I’m not sure that answers my question.”
“They told me to kill you,” Nicky repeats, now giving his husband an incredulous look. When that still doesn’t spark any understanding in Joe, Nicky adds very slowly, as if speaking to a child, “So I killed them instead.”
“What?” Joe asks. “Why would you do that!?”
“Why would I not kill you!?”
“Well, no, I suppose I understand that part. I mean why would you kill them? Does that not make you a marked man?”
Nicky rolls his eyes. “I could not refuse the job and walk away with my life. And if I refused the job but let them live, they would merely give it to someone who would accept it and we’d both be running for our lives.” He shrugged. “I pick you, obviously. Easy choice.”
In that moment, Joe wants so desperately to believe it. Because he doesn’t want to die, but he can’t do the smart thing and leave Nicky, either. He can’t start over with someone else, hell, he’s not sure he could function on his own anymore after knowing what they can have together.
“You don’t believe me,” Nicky says as he senses Joe’s hesitation. His shoulders slump and he looks away. “You don’t think I’d kill for you.”
Joe considers a moment. Is that the part he’s having trouble with?
He thinks about the file still on the dining room table, the evidence of Nicky’s work laid out for anyone to see. No, he does not question that Nicky would kill for him.
“It’s not that,” Joe says dismissively. “You left. You found out who we both are, and you disappeared for a week with no word. I waited here, and nothing. I… I had a lot of time to imagine you not coming back.”
Nicky sucks in a ragged breath, a pained sound escaping his lips as he rushes forward to pull Joe into a hug. It’s vaguely disgusting, the smell of blood thick on him and the blood not quite dried on his shirt, but the gesture is also extremely comforting. How Joe missed this…
“I left to protect you,” Nicky whispers in his ear. “I had to think, had to figure out who knew what, had to know who would come at you. I stayed away to buy time and to sort through the whole mess. They made their move when they hired me, and now it’s over.”
“It’s over?” Joe asks skeptically. “How can you be sure? In my experience, in my line of work, it’s never over. There’s always someone else waiting to pull the trigger, always another buyer for the information you’re peddling.”
There’s a moment of wide-eyed surprise on Nicky’s face before he rolls his eyes. “It’s hard to remember you’re not a civilian, you know as much about how these things work as I do. I mean our current dilemma is over and handled. I can make no promises about future ones, except that I will stay by your side as much as you’ll allow as we work through them.”
“Together?” Joe asks hopefully.
Nicky pulls back from their embrace only far enough to kiss Joe. He tastes salty and divine.
“Together,” Nicky promises. “If you’ll have me.”
“I choose you, obviously,” Joe says with a growing smile. “Easy choice.”
With a new future with his husband on the horizon that’s perhaps a little stranger than the one he’d imagined on their wedding day, Joe knows he’s quite possibly the luckiest man alive.