Archive of Our Own

"So do you?" The voice crackles through the earpiece. Seonghwa winces at the static, glancing sideways at the man beside him.

"Do I what?"

"Ice cream." there's a smirk in Wooyoung's voice.

"What about it?"

"Mint chocolate," Seonghwa hears Yunho let out a mock groan over the comms, "do you like it?"

"Is this the right time to be discussing this?" comes a low murmur. Yeosang. Thank God one of them has some sense.

"What, I'm just asking. Song-shii, what about you?"

There's a pause, then he hears Wooyoung's distinct laughter. He says something inaudible— he must have moved away from the mic to talk to Mingi. Now he wishes he had insisted that someone from Hongjoong's team manage the voice comms instead. So much keeping the assignment 'strictly professional', as Seonghwa'd insisted during in the meetings at the HQ.

"Hey, wait, I haven't answered yet!" San protests.

"Team Z, voices down please." he's surprised it has taken Hongjoong this long to say something. The line goes quiet— even Wooyoung is no longer snickering.

"My sensor is picking up movement. Exit A of the warehouse." Mingi, who is manning the comms for Hongjoong's team, grunts. Seonghwa sees the other leader shift his body to confirm the report through his scope.

"I see three subjects. Can Team Z confirm?"

"Affirmative. Three males, two medium build, one large. Giant, actually." San gives a soft whistle that is muffled by his mask, but they still hear it, "That looks like, what, 7 feet tall? What do you reckon, J?"

"Mm. I could take him." Jongho says. The youngest agent on the other team has fantastic combat scores, and Seonghwa has no doubt that he is great at what he does, but if this man was who he thinks he is...

"Team Z, can you confirm the identity of the largest man?" he asks San.

"What am I looking for?"

"Left ear to jaw." Hongjoong replies curtly, pulling away from the scope and checking the device on his wrist, "there should some scars on his face, like scratch marks. Thin, long and dark, like they were tattooed there."

"Is that why they call him Nero? Because he has black scratches on his face. Nero is Italian for black isn't it?" Mingi asks as they wait for San's confirmation. Seonghwa hesitates.

"Yeah, kind of," his team knows that this is only part of the truth. Hongjoong's team doesn't know the area or the criminals in this area as well as they did, but they really don't have to. Nero is going to die today. Nothing will be left of him but a puddle of blood, and maybe some bones, if they don't go too heavy-handed with the incinerator.

“I think those are scratches…Yup. I see them,” Seonghwa feels a trickle of ice down his spine. “I’m looking at his left profile.”

“That should be him, then.” Yeosang says sagely. Seonghwa could always depend on him to be the most level-headed on his team. A cold sweat was already forming on his brow, and he could hear the tell-tale skitter of keys over the line; Wooyoung always ends up jamming his shift key when he was nervous.

“Team T, get ready to move out. In and out, as fast as you can,” Hongjoong is already on his feet, holstering his small handgun and checking his other equipment, "let's leave as little mess as possible."

He scowls inwardly at the way the other leader delivers instructions to Yeosang and Yunho, his team members. He almost snaps at the other to let him know that his team are just as competent as his are, despite their lack of experience in combat and field raids, and there was no need to order them around like that. But this is not the right time, nor the right place for this argument, a small voice in his head reminds him, focus on the task at hand.

He purses his lips. Fine. He'll just have to wait till after to give the man a piece of his mind.

Seonghwa focuses back on the line just as Hongjoong finishes talking to his own team. He already has a grappling hook slung around one of the fixed roof vents, and is clambering onto the ledge of the roof. His scope and computers are still set up beside Seonghwa, a sprawl of wires, screens, and equipment.

“Are you not going to pack up your…” Seonghwa motions at the mess that Hongjoong has on the roof.

“Later.”

"Are you sure there will be time?"

All he gets for his skepticism what sounds like a cross between a scoff and a laugh, and a pair of bright, sharp eyes lock with his. He can't tell if the man is smiling or not, with the black mask covering his face, "If it bothers you that much, you can clean up then."

Before he can even get another word in, the other man tugs his line and gives him a small, mocking wave before abseiling off the side of the building. He can’t help but roll his eyes.

Show-off. He was always like this, even back when most of them were trainees.

Things are in full swing when he turns back to the comms, with Wooyoung directing Yunho around to the front door of the facility. If he focuses and uses his night vision goggles, he can spot the familiar, lanky figure of his team member as he makes his way across the shipyard, weaving in and out between the rows of containers like a shadow. They are making good time, he thinks as he turns to find Yeosang, who prefers travelling across rooftops rather than over ground. The deal tonight has been scheduled to go down at precisely half past — it was now 10.15pm.

There isn’t a long list of objectives tonight, just get in, get the intel, and take Nero out, permanently. Nobody on their side needs to get hurt. Yeosang is already two-thirds of the way across; he sees his lithe, agile shape darting quickly, springing across the tops of the shipping containers, a like a lethal knife flying through the air, illuminated by the moonlight. He can almost hear the wind in his ears as the boy moves, even though the dashboard on his wrist device tells him both his team members' lines are muted.

A sudden burst of static from his earpiece makes him jump. His elbow bumps into the tripod of Hongjoong’s long-range scope and almost knocks it off the roof. Seonghwa curses, catching it before it tips over. 

“Told him he should have kept this stupid thing first.” Seonghwa takes one last glance at his own field of vision— their targets are milling around, smoking and waiting for the dealer. Not yet. He has time. 

He doesn’t bother trying to be careful with the man’s tripod and wires, although he does spend a moment turning the scope over in his hand, marvelling at how sturdy and compact it is. It’s new, he’d overheard San telling Yunho about it, a present from Eden, the head of data analysis and information extraction. An early birthday present. 

A twinge of jealousy pulls at his gut. Eden is generous and kind to every one of his students, but being the agency's first recruit, Hongjoong is on a different level from the rest of them. It's not something they need to be told, its something they all knew and felt. 

He'd only come in a eight months after Hongjoong, but it seemed as though the boy had been there for at least two years longer than the rest of them. Back when he was a new recruit, every score of theirs was measured against each other, but Hongjoong always seemed to have gotten there first because his marks were always high up on the leaderboard. When Seonghwa finally managed to top his score, a few days later, he would set a new one, higher than before, almost like he was jeering at him, saying, I'm better, I'm always better. It's hard to feel like they aren't being compared when things are like this. 

Of course, this is just an assumption. The agency never ranks active agents, Seonghwa has been given the exact same position that Hongjoong holds. But he can't help but feel bitter whenever the other man's name or achievements are brought up.

He lays the scope carefully in its case, strapping it in. Over his earpiece, he can hear Wooyoung describing the layout of the warehouse to Yeosang. A murmur in the background tells him that Mingi is directing the three from his team as well. This is temporary, Seonghwa reminds himself, we are different. We are two completely separate teams. At the end of this, things will go back to normal. He will have his team and his city to himself again, and Hongjoong's team will be shuttled back where they came from, wherever that was. That's something he could look forward to.

He taps his ear as he switches to the default command line between him, Hongjoong, and the control room. It is a far quieter line than the team or the general line, and all he hears is the distant mutter of Mingi and Wooyoung, and if he strains his ears, the soft, even breathing of the other team leader. 

Seonghwa glances into his scope again. Nero and his men are still there; the men were still smoking and making small talk, but Nero is standing off the side, back to him, staring off into a distance. He checks to see if Team Z are still in position— they are, he can barely see San's headband from where he and Jongho are watching the dock's entrance. His watch reads 10.20pm.

"Kang is in." Wooyoung reports, "He says the ground floor is crawling with people, but he went through the top as planned, so he should get to the monitor room no problem. Y is standing guard, he has eyes on Nero's men."

Seonghwa clears his throat, switching back to the main line, "Alright. Team Z, status?" 

"I have eyes on an armoured truck entering the main gate. Heat sensors are not picking up anything in the hold, so the cargo is likely to be the payment," San responds promptly, "It will arrive at the exchange point in 2 minutes, give or take."

"Good, keep your eye on them," Hongjoong's whisper tickles his ear. It's an irritating sound, "I'm in position, watching Exit C. Y, maybe go a little lower? Just in case someone checks upwards, I saw one of them glancing at the roof just now."

There he goes again, ordering his men around. Yunho replies lightly, a cheery, polite, "Roger." But the words that runs through Seonghwa's head aren't as nice. 

"Hyung, we have a problem. " Yeosang's usually calm voice is edged with tension. He flicks the safety off his rifle and pans until he catches sight of Yunho, who is crouched on the roof, near an opening in the roof which Yeosang had probably entered through. 

"What is it?" He and Hongjoong ask at the same time. 

"The system is encrypted. It looks like it should be Janus... but this one is modified, somehow. It's complicated. I may need more time to figure out how get what we need out without tripping all the alerts." 

Seonghwa has to bite back a curse. In this field, not just their agency, there are only a handful of agents who are as competent in data hacking as Yeosang, so when he says it's complicated... 

"How much more time do you need?" He asks. 

"Mmh. Ten. Fifteen maybe."

This time it's Wooyoung who curses for the rest of them. That's more time in enemy waters than any of them bargained for. 

"Alright, change of plans. Y, meet me at Exit A. Team Z as well. We need to buy time." He stands and starts packing up his rifle, half-listening to what is transpiring over the line.

"Kang, what does the code look like?" Hongjoong is asking. 

"Just let him settle it, Kim. We need to gather at A." Seonghwa has no time for the other trying to play hero, swoop in and decode the encrypted data and save the day. Their main target is Nero, and Yeosang can handle himself just fine. 

"Describe the data to me, Kang. I need details." He's flat out ignoring him now. Seonghwa growls in frustration. The others are all muted, apart from Yeosang and Wooyoung, who he can hear is tapping furiously away at the keys, probably trying to get into the cameras and get eyes on his fellow teammate and best friend.

"Kim, do you hear me?" 

"Song, give me a line to Kang. Then I need you to get on-site to assist Leader Park. Got that?"

"Got it." 

"Wait, Kim H—" Hongjoong's line cuts out and he's left with just the rapid breathing of Wooyoung and the tapping of keys.

"Woo, tell me you have eyes on him." He can't be bothered with the codenames anymore, because the lights going out on his wristboard is telling him that Hongjoong and Yeosang have been taken offline, likely redirected to another by Mingi, whose light blinkers out as he speaks to Wooyoung. Fuck it all.

"I'm trying. They have a ton of firewalls." Wooyoung bites out. Seonghwa shoots a zipline out just as Yunho comes back on.

"Hyung, I'm at A."

"We are here as well." San is back as well, sounding far too calm for someone whose leader had just gone rogue, "Do you want us on the ground?"

"Yes. Yun, is Position 8 clear?"

"I'm looking at it, it's clear."

"Good. You go and join Team Z." He slings his equipment onto his back, checking the line and the pulley, "Woo, any word?"

"Working on it."

"Work faster." He doesn't wait for a reply before pushing off and going down the zipline. 

By the time he reaches his position, he can see that a full fight is well underway. He doesn't even bother with his stand, aiming his sniper's rifle and shooting down the thugs freehand. He focuses on covering for Yunho -- in the corner of his eye, he keeps a lookout for Hongjoong's team as well, but it is clear that they can hold their own in close combat. Jongho and San make quick work of the men that surround them, their backs against each other the whole time, but moving as though they are of the same body. Twin vipers, now he knows why the juniors in the agency often called the Chois that. That is precisely why their teams had been paired together in the first place— Seonghwa's team specialises in long-range targets, with their missions mainly involving data extraction, sniping, and recon. Hongjoong's team does the opposite, they mainly do undercover work and raids, and often engaged directly with the parties involved. 

So for Seonghwa's team, they liked to keep their distance, but with Hongjoong's team, the less space they had, the better.

It is because of their differences that the agency's director had thought it would have been ideal to have them work on this mission together, as there stood a possibility for either of their skillsets to be called into use. He predicted they would balance each other nicely and the assignment would be over and done with in the blink of an eye. But, Seonghwa thinks grimly as he guns down a man who had been levelling his firearm in Yunho's direction, he can bet that not even the director could've predicted that their star agent would go rogue and take matters into his own hands, without any consideration of both teams. 

While he is lost in his thoughts, he misses a black-clad man creeping up behind Yunho; the asshole lunges and clubs his agent over the head with a pipe. The crack can be heard from where Seonghwa is standing. He shouts, a beat too late, as Yunho goes down on his hands and knees, clearly dazed by the hit. 

Suddenly, there is a sudden blast of a car horn and a flare of bright lights, and Seonghwa almost pulls the trigger. Yunho rolls out of the way just in time for what looks like a two-ton truck to go careening right into the crowd of thugs, including the man that had just hit him. He is this close from unloading his entire cartridge of ammunition into the vehicle when San's laughter comes through his earpiece, "Way to make an entrance, Song."

"Sorry," Mingi's voice booms, "Y, you okay?"

"Ah....All good." Yunho's staticky, slightly breathless voice comes through his earpiece, "Thanks for the save, Song." 

"Pleasure."

Seonghwa huffs, turning his aim towards the stragglers running away from the carnage caused by the truck. When he turns back to his men, he can see that Yunho and Mingi have managed to get to Jongho and San, and the four are taking out the last of the perps present.

"Hyung, I still can't get the eyes on Kang!" Fuck, he'd almost forgotten that he still has a man unaccounted for.

"How about the infrared? Motion sensors?" He shoots back.

"The cameras have shut down, so I got thrown out. I was midway through the motion sensors when they shut down too."

"Try everything else." Seonghwa secures a grapple onto the balcony that he has been sniping from, "Song, are you there?"

"Yessir."

"You have a lot of explaining to do, but right now, please tell me you have ears on Kang and Leader Kim."

The silence confirms his worst fears. At that precise moment, Jongho makes a sound.

"Hyung, look."

There is a pause, then San let's out a colorful string of curses, and suddenly Mingi is shouting. From the little he knows about the man, Seonghwa knows that Mingi rarely, if ever, shouts.

Oh no.

"We need to—"

The rest of the sentence is swallowed by a concussive roar as, without a single warning, the warehouse explodes into flames. 

The blast knocks the wind right out of his lungs, and he'd have tumbled off the balcony if not for the line he'd secured to the guard rails. As he gets back onto his feet, he can't hear anything over the ringing of his ears. His vision clears just enough for him to register that back half of the warehouse that Yeosang had just entered was now completely decimated. Terror dawns upon him; Seonghwa can feel his lips forming the words, but his ears cannot register his anguished cry.

No. No, no, no.

A smiling face of a dark-haired boy flashes across his mind's eye, his eyes wide and earnest and trusting. The black hair morphs to a platinum blonde and Junyoung's face turns into Yeosang's, and Seonghwa feels something in his chest shatter. 

No. Not again.

There's a distant screaming in his ears, and thats when he realises that the comms have been shorted out by the explosion, so he just rips the earpieces out. He doesn't bother checking the integrity of his line as he leaps off his post, plummeting towards the ground as fast as he can. Somewhere at the back of his mind, a voice reprimands him, reminding him how lucky he because his untested line holds, but Seonghwa doesn't feel that lucky at all when he sees the line of blood streaking down the side of Yunho's face. His mask is gone, probably lost in the tussle; there is a look of absolute horror on the younger man's face as he watches the building burn, the inferno reflected in his wide eyes. The young man sinks to the floor, eyes never leaving the fire, and the invisible knife in Seonghwa's chest twists. 

Seonghwa gets to his member, reaching for Yunho and pulling him close. They hold on tightly to one another, as if to anchor each other down even though the agony of the loss is enough to rip his battered heart into two.

"Hong....Hongjoong hyu—...Y...Yeosa..ng..." Yunho's breath stutters against his vest, and he can feel it even through his shirt, and Seonghwa almost cries out. The fire bears down against his back, and he welcomes the scalding heat. He barely even notices someone taking hold of his arm, as well as Yunho's, to pull them clear of the disaster -- they are too blind in their pain to care. Right now, it feels like the whole world had been set alight, and there was nothing he could do to salvage it.

"...out of it. Hey, Park! Park Seonghwa!" He is pulled forcefully back into consciousness by someone shouting in his face, and he blinks. Mingi is shaking him, and he looks this close from slapping him across his face to get his attention.

"Snap out of it." The younger man growls, jerking him once more before letting go. Looking into his eyes was like staring into pitch darkness, it was endless, cold, and inscrutable.

"I—"

"Hyung, the reading is lagging. Could you... " Mingi stands up, and walks out of his vision. When had he fallen down on the dusty ground? he asks himself numbly, have his legs given out on him? Because they feels like they have.

He turns slowly and sees San crouching next to Yunho, talking to him in a low voice. Yunho is blinking slowly, twin tear tracks mixing with the dust from the explosion and blood on his face. His eyes flicker, and they lock with Seonghwa's; San must notice this, because he turns, before going over to haul the leader to his feet, and leading him to his remaining member.

"... not jump into conclusions. J saw hyung go in after him. They could have both made it out."

Something that feels like helium bubbles up in his chest, Seonghwa is seized by an urge to scream. Instead, a breathy, almost hysterical giggle escapes his frozen lips as he stares incredulously at the agent before him, "Are you insane? A fire of that scale—"

"There!" Jongho's shout cuts through the distant rumble of the collapsing warehouse, "They're moving!"

"Good. Keep an eye on them, I'll bring the car around. Get ready to leave." He was gone before Seonghwa could even speak.

"Wha—what's going on? We're leaving?" Yunho asks shakily, as Jongho hauls him to his feet. But Yeosang, and Hongjoong-hyung—"

"We need to regroup. This means we're going back to base." 

"I don't understand," he said, as he gets to his feet, "They're dead. Kim Hongjoong went rogue, the whole warehouse went up in flames, they can't possibly be..."

Jongho pushes past San and thrusts the device he has been looking at into Seonghwa's hands, "They're not dead. Have you known Nero to keep dead bodies as souvenirs? Or do dead bodies move by themselves?" 

The screen of the device glows duly in the dark. It takes a while to understand what Jongho is talking about, but eventually he sees a strong pulsing blue dot, overlaid with fainter, red dot, with both travelling swiftly across the screen in unison. 

"Is that—" 

"We are tracking their signals. The blue one is hyung, the red one is your man."

"But we don't have any trackers on us," Yunho supplies, eyes following Yeosang's dot on the screen, "Hongjoong hyung said it wasn't necessary, and our team didn't request for any. This was supposed to be a simple intel collection and termination." 

"These are not agency-issued trackers," says San, taking the device back, "Leader Kim has one permanently embedded in his arm. The one Kang is using is a prototype, an ingestable tracker. Hyung gave one to Kang when he'd caught up with him. Song invented it, the agency hasn't approved them for use, but our team has been test running it for him. Don't worry, it's mostly safe." 

The younger man glances at his watch again, clicking his tongue at the time. "He should be here soon. Leader Park, did hyung leave anything behind on the roof?" 

He is struggling to process all the information that is being thrown at him, but he manages to nod numbly. San throws him a thumbs up and takes off, shooting a grappling line out to the nearest building and disappearing. 

"Wait, I don't understand," Yunho says slowly. His eyes don't look as glassy as before, now that they've been told that Yeosang is.... In all honesty, it still seems impossible, "How... Did Hong— how did hyung know that they were going to be ambushed? Was that the plan all alone? But the mission brief said..." 

Theres a low rumble of a car approaching. Jongho tucks the tracking device away, and waves down Mingi, "Actually, I'm not sure either. But Song-hyung says that there's something bigger going on, he will tell us when we get back to Jung-shii."

"So this whole mission was a fluke?" numbness was being overtaken by a flare of anger. Seonghwa rounds up on the youngest agent as he opens a car door, "Kim lied? The director lied about—" 

Something seems to snap in Jongho, and the younger man stiffens. Then he turns to Seonghwa, eyes narrowed. 

"Look, Leader Park. I have no idea what you have against our leader, but honestly I could care less. But one more word against him, I will not hesitate to climb in and tell Song-hyung to leave you behind." the agent jabs a finger into his chest, "we know our leader, he would never go off on his own without good reason. Whether you believe that or not that's up to you." 

Silence falls on them as they trade glares. Seonghwa feels rattled, he'd gone from thinking a colleague had gone rogue, that his friend (his brother) had died, to being told that the whole thing was a setup. And now he's being told to follow along, and believe every word he's hearing without questioning.

"Hyung," Yunho's hand touches him gently on his back, "there's not much we can do here anyway. If... We need to let the fire burn out before we can go in and survey. Let's just... Let's just go back to Wooyoung. Please." 

There's a pleading edge to his voice, and Seonghwa concedes. Jongho huffs out a breath, turning back to the car,"Thank you, Y-shii. Also, while in the field protocol dictates we continue to use only codenames and honorifics. I know you are... affected by what happened, but let's remember the rules of the job. Thank you."

The door snaps close. The subtle reprimand stings, but as little as he would like to admit it, the younger agent was right. 

Yunho squeezes his shoulder and he turns to his team member. The man's face is an open book, and Seonghwa's heart jumps a little at seeing how his eyes are filled with hope. Hope that Yeosang is alive. 

Please. I can forgive everything if that is the truth. 

"Hyung?" 

He nods, patting his friend on the hand in response.

"Let's go." 

~

Days later

~

Four days, a voice in the back of his head sneers. It is the voice that had often haunted him during his training days in the agency. Always jeering at him for not being good enough.

It took you four days to save them. It would have taken Kim Hongjoong half the time, had he been the one in charge.

Shut up.

He crouches in the overhead rafters of the warehouse they were in, waiting for any movement from one of the entrances or the elevator. Jongho is a few rafters over, playing with one of his switchblades while eyeing the exit that is out of Seonghwa's line of sight. He can't see him, but he knows Mingi is around too, scouting out the perimeter from overhead. Every now and then, he looks up and sees a flash— the light-haired man's face appears, shaking his head when Seonghwa locks eyes with him. Nothing yet.

There's a small beep in his ear, and San's voice comes in, pitched to a low whisper.

"Team E is on the move. Leader Park, do you copy?"

"Copy. Any news from the shipment crew?"

"The men moving the shipment just left, we see the vans pulling out of the compound," Wooyoung's voice chimes in.

"Noted. Choi, have our allies been notified?"

"They are in position and waiting," The younger man's voice is clear, "Leader Lee said they will handle things on their end and asks us to 'give Nero hell for what he did to Hwall'."

"Alright," he sees Jongho sit up sharply, his blade snapping close. Moments later, there's a murmur of sound from the side he can't see, "We'll do our best. Team E, we have activity. When you locate Kang, let me know. Ready up on my cue."

"Got it, hyung." Yunho says.

His communication device buzzes as Jongho growls, his eyes fixed on the entrance directly below him, out of Seonghwa's line of sight, "What have they done to him?"

His tone of voice sends a shiver down Seonghwa's spine. He manuvers himself to join the younger agent where he is, so he can see what he's looking at. His stomach swoops when he sees the limp figure being hauled across the warehouse floor, his back to them. There's a flash of relief when he sees the hair and realizes its not Yeosang, but it's quickly replaced by abject horror.

Hongjoong.

The man looks like a wreck, hanging between the hands of two men. He is barely even walking by himself; his left leg is lagging uselessly behind him as he does a stumbling, shuffle-walk to the middle of the room, dragged along by the jeering thugs. Despite all this, he doesn't make any sounds of protest, walking until he'd reaches whatever spot they wanted him to be at.

They watch as Hongjoong is knocked to the ground and his legs tied, before he's hoisted up by his bound wrists. The men only stop when his feet are hovering slightly above the ground. Seonghwa can see him struggling to stop himself from spinning by tiptoeing on one foot. His hair is damp and plastered against his face and neck like he'd just been sprayed down with water... it may not be too far from the truth, because the black undershirt that Seonghwa knows he'd been wearing under his weapons vest is soaked through.

A low snarl comes from his right, and he looks over to see Jongho, his eyes bright with fury. "I'm going to gut these vermin."

Seonghwa swallows past the rock in his throat and places a steadying hand on the other young man.

"Let's not rush into things. We need to wait for Team E."

As if on cue, Hongjoong coughs, before rasping, his voice low and hoarse.

"Where is—"

"You can barely hold yourself up, and you're worried about that little data-rat?" Seonghwa feels his blood turn into ice at the man's jab. Hongjoong glances up, and the other leader is shocked to see how many cuts and bruises there are on his face. His lips are thin and pale, but the anger in his eyes is palatable.

"Is he okay?"

Without warning, the biggest thug punched Hongjoong in the abdomen, making the agent grunt in pain. Jongho sucks in a breath and looks like he's about to go lunging at the men below, guns blazing and knives flying, but suddenly Mingi appears beside him and touches his arm, shaking his head. The man's grave eyes meet Seonghwa's, and he nods.

"Shut up, you little piece of shit! You don't get to ask the questions 'round here. Who d'you think you are, huh?"

One of the smaller men pulls out a cigarette, clicking his tongue as he lights it, "Usually I'm all for you doing whatever you want, Jun, but let's ease up a bit today.  He looks a little... We won't have any leverage against the little blonde one if all that's left of his leader is a dead body.

"Right." Big Jun aims a kick at their colleague's unsteady foot, causing him to lose balance and hang entirely by his wrists. The ropes squeak in protest. It sounds painful, "Now are you going to name your other team members, or not?"

So that what's they're trying to get him to do. Seonghwa sees Mingi's grip tightens around his fighting batons. Have they been trying to squeeze their names out of him for four whole days?

"C'mon, don't be shy. We know you must've have at least a dozen other people on it. Can't be just you and that blondie, Sunghoon," he takes out his handphone and opens some sort of list, "Choi Jonghoon, Jung? Jung Joonyoung. Who else?"

The names set off alarm bells in Seonghwa's head. Sunghoon is harder to grasp, but Jonghoon, Joonyoung... where had he heard it before?

Hongjoong coughs, before whispering something. Smokes' face lights up a little and puts his ear closer to the man to listen. After a beat he snaps back, dropping his cigarette and clapping his hand over his ear, growling.

"Little bastard! You bit my— " the rush of savage glee that Seonghwa feels at Hongjoong's retaliation is quickly smothered by panic when one of the man, wearing a black woollen cap, grabs a fistful of Hongjoong's hair and wrenches his head back.

"This fiesty mutt hasn't listening in class. What did have we been trying to teach you about respecting your masters? " what Black Beanie gets is a wad of Hongjoong's bloody spit, aimed perfectly at his face. They watch with horrified awe— Seonghwa knows Hongjoong is bold, sometimes cocky, but he's never seen him provoke the enemy with this much recklessness before.

It seems almost... desperate.

Smokes' eyes narrow, "Seems like the lesson needs to be beaten into him. Men?"

Wooyoung's voice buzzes into his ear, "Hyung, we've located Kang. He's in one of the lock-ups in the basement."

"What's the security like? Are there guards?"

"Three guards. Looks like an old school lock and key. We should be able to dismantle it easily."

"Ok. On my mark, Team Z is going in. Get ready and be careful."

"Yessir," say San and Yunho in unison.

"Song, let's get into position. When I say go..."

The man nods and melts into the shadows again. Seonghwa starts to make for the rafter directly above Hongjoong, when Jongho grabs his arm.

Their eyes lock, and the young man says, eyes burning, "Look after him."

He nods mutely, a rock appearing in his throat.

"I will."

None of the men below notice them moving— they're too busy getting out their equipment. Seonghwa focuses on getting to his drop-point, and not think too much about the rattle of chains or the glint of knives coming from below. He doesn't want to imagine if these have been used by these assholes, and how many times they've used it on Hongjoong, maybe even Yeosang.

He checks for Mingi; the man is already ready, his escrima sticks sparking with electricity and his line secured. Jongho has his blades sheathed in his wrist gauntlets and is testing his line. He feels a little under-armed with just one pistol, but his favoured weapon, the rifle, is useless in close combat.

"Ready?" he gets twin nods.

"Ready." Yunho's voice echoes through his earpiece.

He sucks in a breath, "Team Z, go."

He hears the tell-tale swish of the other two agents as they drop down. The alarmed shouts that break out all around below, telling him that he is right in assuming they were not expecting them at all. The attention is sufficiently redirected, and he can hear some of the men shouting into their walkies for reinforcements.

"Hyung, two of the guards are leaving, " Wooyoung reports. 

"Ok, go get Kang, and get out as soon you can, copy?"

"Copy."

He lets himself fall, the line buzzing by his ear as it controls his descent. Seonghwa lands like a cat, right beside where Hongjoong is tied up. The other leader looks worse up close, pale and soaked to the skin, his feverish eyes tracking his movements warily. There's a burning sensation Seonghwa's chest, like he's just swallowed a whole lemon.

One of the thugs seem to have noticed him and yells, slashing wildly at him with a knife. Without thinking, Seonghwa ducks to dodge, which means the man ends up slicing at Hongjoong, through his threadbare shirt and along his side. For the first time that night, Seonghwa hears Hongjoong cry out in shock and pain, and suddenly its like his bloodstream has just been pumped full of acid. He's not just angry now, he's frustrated, exhausted, full of guilt, fear, and he's really, really fucking pissed.

He retaliates with his pistol, and knocks the man flat on his back. To keep him there, he puts two bullets in the man's ankles, positioned so the injuries are very painful, but non-fatal. Good. Seonghwa hopes he suffers.

He keeps close to where Hongjoong is tied, shooting a few more thugs who'd dare come closer, and takes savage satisfaction in knocking out a few teeth with the butt of his gun.

"... Seo... Park?"

"Hello to you too, Kim." he holsters his gun and reaches for his knife, eyeballing the predicament the other man is in, "need some help?"

"Definitely."

As he cuts the ropes around his calves, and realises that the man's bad leg, the one he'd been dragging, looked badly twisted, likely broken. Another twinge of guilt pulls at his gut, but he doesn't say anything.

"Can you stand on your right foot?"

"Probably," the other man rasps, then coughs, all thick and wet. In all honesty, he's quite impressed that the man is still lucid, and responding to his questions. A lesser man would have passed out by now.

Seonghwa slides his short blade carefully under the ligatures, "On the count of three. One, two, three—"

He slices the ropes and catches Hongjoong as he drops and stumbles, his legs folding under him. He helps the man to stand, but he can feel the other shaking from the effort.

"You alright?" he asks, before immediately wincing at the blatant worry in his voice.

Hongjoong lets out a strained but clear chuckle before quickly stopping. Seonghwa tries not to meet his eyes.

"Just peachy. Remind me not to laugh, I'm pretty sure some of my ribs are cracked."

At that moment, there is a sharp intake of breath from the other leader, and Seonghwa's first thought was that he must've accidentally jostled another injury, but before he can even apologise, he feels the weight of his pistol leave his waist, where he'd kept it.

"Wha—"

Before he can react, he hears two shots fired in quick succession, and waits for the burning whomp of a bullet against his bulletproof vest, maybe his unprotected legs, but nothing comes.

Then Hongjoong pulls away slightly, breathing a little heavier and his sallow face twisted into a grimace. He feels something tap his arm and dares to look. Hongjoong is holding onto a gun. His gun.

"One of them was reaching for the knife... so I used your gun. Wasn't enough time to ask... sorry. " he takes the weapon from the other numbly, and he is glad his face is covered by a mask so Hongjoong can't see the bewilderment on his face. Not that the man would have noticed anyway, he is too busy trying to stay on his feet without leaning too much on Seonghwa. The discomfort between the two of them, despite the fact that Seonghwa is basically holding the other up, is almost visible.

He makes up his mind when Hongjoong tries to put weight on his very broken foot and nearly falls face-first into the dirt.

"You're an idiot." Ignoring the offended expression on his comrade's face, he wraps the man's arm around his shoulders and picks Hongjoong up.

"Park!"

"Shut up," he casts a glance around him, satisfied to see that most of the gangsters were either incapacitated, or being taken care of by Mingi and Jongho. Jongho spears the last of his attackers, paying no heed to the pained screams as he casts him aside. The youngest of them checks that Mingi has things handled on his end, before looking to the pair of leaders and jogging over to them.

"Hyung."

To Seonghwa, the deadpan greeting holds no emotion, but it makes Hongjoong roll his eyes and knock his head against Jongho's.

"Don't be so dramatic... I'm just being manhandled, it's not like I'm dead."

A scowl spreads across Jongho's face, but he places takes his leader's hand and grips it, like he's tethering himself and making sure the man doesn't run off again. Good call. Hongjoong rolls his eyes again, but he doesn't shake the other agent off.

Just as Mingi knocks out the last one, Yunho's voice bursts into his earpiece, a little louder than what is ideal, but he sounds breathless and triumphant.

"We have him! Hyung, we have him. We're on our way out."

The other lines come back on, and Seonghwa can already Wooyoung chattering happily into the common communication line with San and someone else. His own heart feels less like a boulder in his chest now.

"Well done, Team E. Team Z is on our way out too," He starts to move, the weight of Hongjoong in his arms a little strange, but manageable weight. He can feel the other man trembling, through the soggy shirt and his own kevlar sleeves. Jongho sticks close by, helping them clear a path by kicking aside whatever is blocking them, "How is Kang?

He feels Hongjoong's weight shift ever so slightly in his arms as he leans closer, probably trying to hear the words coming through his earpiece. Mingi catches up with them in a light jog. Seonghwa can feel him just behind, covering their backs. 

"He's fine. No major injuries, apart from some bumps and bruises, a huge cut from when they got ambushed, but it doesn't look bad. He wants to know about Hongjoong hyung," Yunho pauses, before continuing with a laugh, "he's also asking whose stupid idea it was to name our teams E and Z when Jung had so much difficulty with the padlock."

There's a scuffle in the background, and Wooyoung's outraged voice comes in. Jongho has taken to walking sideways, probably to keep an eye on the corridor behind Seonghwa, and Hongjoong simultaneously.

"Stop shitting on me! The padlock was just stuck, leave my puns alone." it which makes everyone, except Hongjoong, who doesn't have a earpiece, smile. Seonghwa can't help but feel lighter at the rapid return to normalcy, at least within his own team.

"Did you manage to find the central console?" Mingi asks as he falls in step with Seonghwa, reaching over to check on Hongjoong. Seonghwa can't fault him for worrying; he can feel how hard Hongjoong is breathing, and he doesn't need to look down to know how pale the man already is. With the adrenaline running out, his injuries are starting to make themselves known.

"San knows where it is; he and Wooyoung have just left to go plug the poison stick in."

"Alright, we'll wait for you at our rendezvous point."

"Roger." he exits the common line after the confirmation.

"Leader Park," Mingi starts, his hands still on Hongjoong. His eyes are dark and stormy again. Seonghwa understands almost immediately, but he doesn't glance down, even as his heart sinks. There just isn't time.

"J," the youngest glances back, "Can you run ahead?"

"Yes."

"Ok. We need oxygen, heating blanket. If you can find a fresh set of clothes, that would be great."

"On it."

He lets Mingi relieve him of the human weight in his arms and watches as the other takes off into a sprint after his teammate. He thought he'd feel lighter without Hongjoong, but instead his arms feel like lead, his footsteps heavy with mounting dread.

He doesn't say any of this, but he doesn't try to shake the feeling off either.

He runs.

~ 

After days of waking up on the concrete floor of the holding cells in grimy, damp clothes, the feeling of fabric and a soft bed under his body is wholly unfamiliar. 

He savours this for a moment, feeling nice and sleepy, wondering if this is real or some delirious feverish hallucination again. 

"Hyung, I know you're awake." 

He cracks his eyes open at San's voice. It takes a beat for it to focus, but when it does, he sees his teammate standing by his bed, leaning against the bedrail. Hongjoong takes in everything while San watches him with the trained eye of a field medic.

"It's about time you woke up."

"And good morning to you too." he rasps. His tongue feels dry and flimsy, like a thick wad of cotton, "could I have some..."

"Sure."

His head is a heavy sandbag and the fuzzy weakness in his hands makes it hard to find the controls for the bed. San catches his wandering hands and places the remote in it, before moving away to get some water. He adjusts the bed to a more upright position, so he can see his friend better, and tries for a grateful smile when the younger man returns with a bottle. San holds the straw for his leader, intelligent eyes still observing him as he takes a drink.

"Slow sips. I'm not cleaning you up if you puke."

"Thanks." he says. Hongjoong glances slowly around the plain, undecorated medical room, noting the single window with curtains drawn over it; he thinks he can see a sliver of sunlight peeking through. 

"What time is it now? How many days... ?" 

As he sets the bottle aside, San glances at his watch. 

"It's almost 2pm, and it's been slightly under a week. The agency let us move our operations from the field house to this medical because this was where we sent you, and they wanted us to stay close, just in case," San leans onto the rails again. He can see the younger man gnawing on his lower lip as he looks his hyung up and down, as if checking for any sign that something was wrong; he practically vibrating with anxiety. 

"...You can be real asshole sometimes, y'know that?" There's no heat behind San's words, Hongjoong knows from the years he's spent training and working with the man. He's just upset because—

"That bad, huh?"

San rolls his eyes. Hongjoong watches him sit down heavily in the chair behind him, and with some effort, the older man lifts his hand, resting it on the siderail. 

For a moment, his agent looks like he doesn't want accept his offer of comfort, but eventually he takes it gently, and lowers it down onto the bed where they stay clasped, Hongjoong's cold, numb hand wrapped in San's warm and callused one. The younger agent props his chin up on the rail, his expression unusually sombre. For all their tenacity and the cold precision with which they handle their targets, out in the field, Hongjoong knows his team members are all tender souls at heart. Even Jongho, although the youngest is stubborn and would never admit it. He imagines the amount of grief his act must have caused them— he wants to apologise , if it would help. He's not sure it would. 

"Jongho's lost a hyung before," San says quietly, quite suddenly, "did you know that?" 

He feels his throat close up a little, but he manages a quiet response. 

"Mm. When he was still training with T.O.Patrols. The guy's name was Byung...?" 

"Lee Byunghun. Yeah." He's heard Jongho recount this before, and the deadened expression on his young face when he had to talk about it. Jongho. Their maknae. 

His maknae. 

"He never talks about it, but he really freaked out after we got you to medical. Mingi had to take him outside for a bit to calm down, because the medical staff were suggesting that we sedate him. I don't think I've ever seen him that upset before." 

"Mm." A guilty pang hits him like a blow to the chest. He shifts uncomfortably, only to receive a feedback of actual pain from his battered body, so he stops. 

"Yeosang was really worried too. I mean, you were both taken together, and he saw what happened to you. He didn't talk about it much, because he was trying to stay positive, but sometimes, I'd come by in the middle of the night to check how things are, and he'd be asleep on that couch over there," San's eyes flit to a narrow, uncomfortable-looking couch at the other end of the room.  

Hongjoong swallows the sour taste in his mouth, "San-ah... I'm sorry."

San makes a frustrated noise and runs his other hand through his hair, messing it up, "I know you're sorry, hyung, but you're missing the point." 

"I know, but it doesn't make me feel... less sorry." 

The younger man sighs, his eyes dropping to their clasped hands as he plays with his hyung's fingers, "You always tell us, don't play the hero. More harm will come out of it than good. You can't save others if you don't save yourself first. What good is all that preaching if all you do is go out there and do the opposite of everything you tell us not to do?" 

Hongjoong winces inwardly as the remark. 

"I—" 

"That's actually really sound advice." a quiet, new voice chimes in, and both of them look up towards the door to see Seonghwa standing there, "You should really listen to yourself more often." 

"Leader Park."

"Just Seonghwa will do. We are the same age, after all." 

"Seonghwa-shii. It's been awhile." San releases Hongjoong's hand as he stands, the chair scraping nosily against the floor.

"My lunch break is almost over, and I have a ton of paperwork to do, so... I'll just leave you two to catch up." 

Hongjoong tries for a smile, but it just feels unnatural on his face. His mind is still a whirlpool; he doesn't even notice when Seonghwa drops down into San's vacant seat.

"Are you thinking about what San said?" he startles, turning his head to look at the other leader. While San had been in a white tee and his favourite pair of black sweats, Seonghwa is in a dress shirt with its sleeves folded up and work trousers— there is no standard attire for agents, even when they were in the office doing desk duties, but apart from during their training and sparring sessions, Hongjoong has never seen Seonghwa dress down before. He was always in some sort of formal wear, like he'd places to be, clients to meet. It looks nice, but perhaps it was because of this that Hongjoong never really felt compelled to approach him. 

He lets the silence hang, so Seonghwa is forced to elaborate, "I'm just saying, you do tend throw yourself headfirst into the water without checking whether or not the pool is filled first.

"...that's quite a metaphor, I didn't know you spoke like that."

"That's because we've never really talked before, outside of business." 

"True."

"Yeosang filled us in on what happened." 

A chill goes down his spine, but he keeps his expression neutral. He looks away from his colleague, pretending to be more interested in the hump of his foot cast under the blankets in front of him. 

"What did he say?" 

"You told him that when the time came, and if he was desperate, you wanted him to hack into a specific server and pull information from there. He didn't understand what you meant until Nero started resorting to more... convincing methods of getting him to follow his orders." Hongjoong swallows involuntarily, remembering the look on Yeosang's face when he had been dragged into the interrogation room that they'd been keeping the other man in. Once they started beating Hongjoong up, it took less than fifteen minutes before Yeosang finally caved and started hacking into the database that he'd described. 

"He went in and found a whole server packed with encrypted information, but he said that all the data was all fake," The other leader continues, crossing his arms, "they were a falsified profiles of a bunch of strangers or dishonourable agents and mock data from a non-existent agency."

"It was one of my contingencies. Just in case." 

He isn't lying. The cases that had led them to Nero had all involved some sort of information extraction or hacking of sensitive data. It's the kind of information that they know many would pay a lot of money for. It's the kind that could bring down entire agencies, the kind that could destroy hundreds of lives. He'd suspected something like that would happen to them, so he had to put up some sort of safety net. 

Seonghwa leans back in his chair, his expression tells Hongjoong that he isnt convinced, "Right. You told him to tell them that his name was Kang Sunghoon, and yours was Kim Hyunjoong. Why those two?" 

"Our last names and blood types match with those two dummy profiles. I needed to take that precaution, because—" 

"They were tapping our lines." Seonghwa finishes for him, "You memorised all the profiles you put on that server?" 

He shrugs without thinking, and winces when the broken ribs make their presence known, "Ah... Mm, its a... Habit of mine. One of the most secure places to keep information is in the brain. Specifically, my brain."

"Ah."

"How did you find out they were tapping our lines? I only found out when started interrogating us using our last names, but didn't seem to know our first names."

"We ran through the recordings and Mingi found an anomaly. We traced it back and found the bug." 

"Nice. Help me thank Mingi for his work." 

"Right," Seonghwa says slowly. He plucks a pen out of the pocket of his shirt, and twirls it between his fingers. His gaze is unreadable, "why don't you do that yourself? He is your team member, after all." 

Hongjoong's mouth opens, then shuts. Seonghwa is looking at him with bright, intelligent eyes. 

He knows. 

"You haven't told them yet?" 

"I'm..." his shoulders sag as he turns away from Seonghwa, looking at the door that San had just left from. The ache that appears in his chest has nothing to do with his broken ribs. 

"I'm still thinking about it." 

"Why, though? Your boys are—" 

"My men," he retorts, the fire in his chest growing, "My team; they trust me too much. There are times where we are knee-deep in shit and the roof is coming down on us, but they never lose their cool. They just look at me and listen to me." 

"They trust you. Is that wrong?" 

He doesn't reply. The door he's staring at stays resolutely closed. 

"So... You don't trust them?" 

His head snaps around so fast that stars flash into his vision, "No! I trust them. I'd trust them with my life, it's just..." 

Before his eyes flashes the image of a circuitboard the size of a small table, an atypical one, soldered and wired in the same offensive green so that all the tracks are indiscernible. Behind him, he can hear Jongho and San's shouting as they work to keep the water from coming into the antechamber, but the metal door is damaged and no longer airtight — gallons of salty ocean water pour in through the seams. Mingi is out cold, propped up against a nearby gas tank to keep him from falling over and going under. He needs to figure out how to activate submarine's draining system, and he doesn't even know if he'd directed them to the correct control panel. He had only had the chance to glance at the map of the ship before they'd left for the mission, and he can't be sure that he's got the directions correct. A moment of complacency, a moment of unpreparedness. And now it may cost them all their lives. 

I dont trust myself.

The silence that hangs between them is as thick as butter. He purposefully avoids Seonghwa's gaze, but he still feels like he's being x-rayed. There's a strong sense of deja vu; It's not so different from how he'd felt, sitting in the head office with their CEO staring at him, his completed transfer form sitting on the desk between them. 

"You know, there actually is another way." 

Hongjoong looks up slowly. The other leader has a piece of paper in his hand, folded into a neat square. 

"What's that?" he receives the item and with some difficulty, unfolds it to read, "Merge Request. Are you suggesting our teams combine?" 

"Management has been talking about reshuffling and rostering larger teams recently. After what happened with some of the smaller teams in the past year, including yours and mine, it seems reasonable to have a field team with someone controlling and monitoring the comms. It would be good if some of us had more hands onboard, and brought different things to the table. Division of labour, and better field efficiency."

Hongjoong worries his bottom lip. It's a bad habit, he knows, but he can't seem to get rid of it, "Your team, would they mind the sudden addition? Because I know what happened with..."

The name Junyoung drops down like an invisible screen between the two of them. Park Seonghwa's expression goes blank as a sheet of canvas. 

"We can manage. Plus I've been with them for the better half of almost two weeks, both your team and mine," the light in Seonghwa's eyes soften a little. Hongjoong raises a brow. 

"And?"

"And—" 

His sentence is cut off by a loud knocking on the door, but before he can call for the visitor to enter, the door bursts wide open so violently that he thought it would fly off its hinges. Wooyoung, Jongho and Yeosang come tumbling in, Wooyoung cackling away, and Jongho red-faced and breathing heavily from running. The youngest is holding something in the hoodie he's wearing, something heavy and... is that water? 

Yeosang is holding the door open, he's bouncing on the balls of his feet and waving wildly at someone down the corridor outside.

"Boys?" Hongjoong is the first to speak over the giggles and Yeosang's whisper-shouts for whoever is outside to hurry up, "Team, what's going on?"

"Hi hyung," Jongho greets, a bright smile on his face as he walks over to the bed and the two leaders, "San hyung said you woke up."

"What's that you have in your arms?" asks Seonghwa. Hongjoong glances at the other leader, who looks just as lost as he is. 

A mischievous twinkle appears in Jongho's eye and he proceeds to open the makeshift pouch and let the two of them see his loot—two, no, about six or seven pints of ice cream mixed with slowly melting ice, and not just any ice cream, it's...

"HR wouldn't give both our teams the rest of the day off to come see you. They spread out all our lunch breaks as well, so we couldn't hang out each other. I overheard Supervisory Agent Kim talking to Agent Lee from Finance saying that they don't see a point in having to accommodate our 'posse' while you were not around to roster us for desk duty." a flame of anger rises in his gut, but Jongho remains exceedingly calm, almost joyful as he starts tossing the tubs out onto Hongjoong's bed, like some sort of strange Father Christmas but for pints of frozen dessert. 

"What did you guys do...?" Seonghwa asks slowly, before shooting out a hand to catch a rock-hard pint just before it hits Hongjoong's broken foot. 

"Oops! Sorry, thanks for the save, Seonghwa hyung," there is a small commotion as Yunho and Mingi come sprinting into the room before Yeosang slips the door shut, shushing everyone.

There is a few beats of absolute silence, everyone is holding their breaths. Suddenly, in a distance, alarms start sounding. Wooyoung collapses onto Mingi in a fresh bout of giggles; the taller boy is laughing so hard that he's practically folding into half from mirth. Hongjoong exchanges bewildered expressions with Seonghwa as Jongho deposits the last of his loot and declares hes going to the washroom to hang his damp hoodie out to dry and possibly take a piss. 

Yeosang comes over to the bed as Jongho moves aside, smiling brightly and a little pink in the cheeks from the excitement. He looks well. 

"Hyung, you're up!" 

"Hi Yeosang. How's your head?" the younger boy leans down and hugs him carefully. The gentle way he leans his head into the crook between Hongjoong's neck and shoulder ignites a soft warmth in his heart.

"It's perfect, didn't even leave a scar, look," he shows the leader proudly. The relief that rushes into him at Yeosang's cheeriness is overwhelming. 

"Wait," Seonghwa interrupts, looking around at the five members of both their teams, "all of you, you've still not explained what is going on. What's all that noise?" 

"Oh don't worry about that, it's just all the fire alarms in the main building," Yunho waves his hand nonchalantly as he drops down onto the couch in front of the bed. Mingi sits down beside him, throwing his arm around his best friend's shoulders. Hongjoong is hit by a sudden memory of seeing them in their trainee days, the unrestrained surprise and joy on Yunho's face when he'd seen Mingi amongst the fresh recruits, and how the younger had broke marching formation to tackle his friend, cheering at the top of his lungs. His behaviour got him in trouble with the head training commander and cost their regiment a set of fifty push-ups, but honestly, Hongjoong would give an arm to see him that young and happy and carefree again. 

"I set them off, all two hundred and fifty-seven of them, excluding the six alarms we have in medical," Mingi explains gleefully, the technical terms tumbling off his tongue as they often did when he was excited, "The script I ran to set them off also overloaded the building network. They can't stop the alarms collectively without the network, so they need to restart it to get everything up again, but that takes about an hour, and my code loops, so as soon as the network comes back up, the alarms will keep getting triggered every few minutes. Long story short, if they want to stop the ringing, they either have to wait five hours for the whole script to run to the end, or—"

"They'll have to disconnect each alarm, one by one, manually." injects Wooyoung, clapping Yeosang on the back, "it's actually genius."

"You guys—" Seonghwa's exasperation is truncated by a crash in the washroom and a responding shriek that sounds like Jongho. It becomes clear why the youngest had yelled when the door opens to admit a ruffled and slightly dusty San and a mildly irritated Jongho. 

"Spoons!" San's announcement is met by cheers from the crowd as he waves the said utensils in the air, "Hi again, Seonghwa hyung, Hongjoong hyung."  

"San, how did you get in the washroom—"

"He was using the air vents. Again." 

As they hand the spoons out, San turns to Mingi, "you're wrong by the way, the fridges in the upper floors all got knocked out. 

Mingi's acknowledging "Ah!" is followed quickly by a question from Hongjoong, whose eyes flit to the tubs of Baskin Robbins ice cream on his bed, "The upper floors, isn't that where..." 

"Finance is up there," chirps Jongho. It's weird to see him this cheery on a day of desk duty, "we heard they got these new fancy refrigerators that can be operated remotely, like if you want it to defrost a certain compartment, or to make more ice, all that kinda nonsense. It's all connected to the main network, but Mingi hyung thought it may have reserves if we disconnected it, but we took some of their fancy schmancy ice cream, just in case it stopped working."

"Correction, we saved their ice cream. If not for us, these babies would have died a miserable, lukewarm death," Wooyoung insists as he picks up a pint labeled new york cheesecake and passes it to Yeosang. Mingi calls out to him and he gets a pint of mint chocolate cream hurled enthusiastically in his direction. It's a miracle that Yunho catches it for him in time and no one's eye gets taken out in the process. 

Hongjoong leans back against his pillows, looking around at the rowdy group, at a loss for words. He looks at Seonghwa for help, but the other leader is not looking at him; he's looking the six field agents with attentive eyes, a small, fond smile on his face as he watches them hand out the desserts. So this is what he meant. Maybe a merge wouldn't be such a shot in the dark after all. 

"Hyung, look, we stole—I mean, we permanently borrowed the rainbow sherbet for you!" San lifts the tub proudly to show Hongjoong. 

"Thank you." Hongjoong and Seonghwa respond in unison. There is a beat of pindrop silence, then Jongho mutters around his spoon, elbowing Mingi in the ribs. 

"I told you they had more in common than just being equally naggy."

Yunho chokes on something and Wooyoung lets out a snort of laughter at Jongho's statement and is chased into a corner by Yeosang to reflect.

San rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepishly between the two leaders, "Sorry, Seonghwa hyung, but we didn't know you like rainbow sherbet, we got it for Hongjoong hyung..." 

"It's alright, give it to Lead— Seonghwa." Hongjoong says quickly, eyes darting to his fellow leader, whose face is a little pink. His... friend? 

The man coughs and clears his throat, "Let's share. I can't finish the whole tub by myself anyway."

He tries to ignore the six wide, slightly anticipatory pairs of eyes that are riveted to them. He is not about to start encouraging such behaviour and he also hopes they don't notice his ears turning red. 

"... Alright."

Yeosang sits down on the edge of his bed to help him open a spoon and scoop him some of his pint. Wooyoung, bless his heart, returns from his timeout and attempts to feed Seonghwa some of the mint chocolate ice cream from the extra tub they had. 

"I don't like it." 

"Seriously? Mint Choco is the superior flavour though." Mingi gapes, giving Yunho the perfect opportunity to put a heaping spoon of cookies and cream in his mouth. 

"I like it! But I prefer the cherry flavour." Wooyoung raises his hand. Yeosang goes off to make an attempt at Jongho's ice cream, so San has taken over the responsibility of helping their hyung scoop some rainbow sherbet. 

"Mint Choco tastes like toothpaste." Hongjoong volunteers.

"It tastes like toothpaste? Huh..."

"Wait, so you don't like it as well? Geez, hyung, you and Seonghwa hyung have so much in common."

"We are not that alike."

"But you said you don't like mint choco."

"I didn't say I don't like it." 

"You said it tastes like toothpaste." 

"It does." 

"So you eat it even though it tastes like toothpaste to you?" 

"Uh...." 

"So you like the taste of toothpaste?" 

"Hyung, do you eat toothpaste?" 

"... No comment."

~

Epilogue

He almost misses the envelope that has been placed on his desk because his mind is preoccupied with the day's events. He sets down his bag on the table and nearly knocks the item off the table; he stops it from falling with his right hand.

The contents of the envelope slide out onto his lap when he turns it upside down. There are photographs this time, and he can't bear to look at them, so he turns them face down and focuses his attention into the phone.

He sits there for a few minutes, wondering if he should put it off till the last moment. Whatever his decision might have been, it doesn't matter because seconds after he has that thought, the phone starts to vibrate with an incoming call.

He picks up on the third ring, eyes searching the room for any sign that things have been tampered with.

"I see you're still there." even with the electronic distorter, there is a certain smugness in the caller's voice.

"Of course, where else would I be?"

A scoff comes through the line, "Right. I forgot that Nero only put Kang Yeosang up to the task. You're lucky that they didn't make that meddler Kim Hongjoong do the hacking...he'd have caught the rats straight away. "

"That's because neither of them were supposed to be taken," he growled, anger rising through his chest, "I told you, everything you need was in Yeosang's field computer. Your men were supposed to stun him, take it, and go. That was the deal."

"I'm not responsible for your inability to get your subordinates to follow your orders."

Seonghwa's hand tightens on the phone. He has to actively stop himself from hurling the offensive item at the wall.

"I could say the same for you. The deal was simple wasn't it? My boys and I get Nero, You get the information you wanted. But Nero wasn't even on-site on the night of the mission; he sent a double. How's that for following orders?"

He hears the other side go quiet and gets a twinge of satisfaction. It's a petty win, but a win nonetheless.

The distorted voice goes on, acting as if he didn't say anything, "In any case, you got him in the end. And I heard your men did a real number on his base of operations, so that's my end of the deal fulfilled. I'm only interested about how you're going to fulfil your end now."

Seonghwa wants to sneer at the opposite party, really dig his claws in and tear them apart, but he catches himself just in time. His eyes fall on the photographs on his table and his hands go cold. He can't do that. He needs to keep them safe.

"There was a system malfunction today at the agency. I used the breach to open a back door for you. If you use that, you will find what you need."

"Hold on, this wasn't part of the agreement—"

"This is not the first time you've had me jump through hoops and dig through the trash for something that should have been delivered to my doorstep," he retorts, "I've been tested enough, so I see no reason for you to test me further. I've kept my word regarding every deal we've made so far. I think it's high time for you to do the same."

He ends the call without waiting for the other side to respond and slams the phone down so hard that he hears something crack. Doesn't matter anyway; it's a burner phone, he's going to have to chuck it in the incinerator later.

He knows what's on the photos even before he flips them over. A little boy sitting on a swing set, laughing and cheering as someone out of the frame pushes him higher. There's another one, this time of the same little boy on an older woman's lap as another lady pushes them along in the older woman's wheelchair. The second picture had been taken from a farther away, but it's still clear enough that Seonghwa feels tears spring unbidden to his eyes when he sees his mother's silhouette in the wheelchair.

There are words printed on the back of the photo paper, just a few words and numbers.

'Park Hoon with Mrs Park JooAh (grandmother), Ms Lee Mihyun (mother)'

'Park Hoon with Ms Lee Mihyun (mother) (not pictured)'

Both photos are dated to have been taken a week ago. It's recent enough that it makes he can almost imagine what they look like now, his nephew, his mother, his sister-in-law.

He feels like throwing up.

It takes him awhile to calm down enough to go down to the laboratories to throw the phone away. He throws in the close up shot of Hoon as well, the boy's face is far too clear in it for Seonghwa to feel safe keeping it, especially with how easily people seem to be able to break into his personal quarters. But the other picture he keeps. If he looks at it long enough, he can almost hear the fondness in his mother's voice, Hoon's joyous laughter, and Mihyun's lighthearted chiding.

I will keep them safe. I will make sure they stay safe.

The edges of Hoon's photo curl inwards, covering his face as it gets swallowed by the fire.

I promise.