Work Text:
“You want to play a game?”
Ian looked out from the room, past the bars and the boardgame between two fidgeting hands, to the hamster holding them. His ear perked up and his head cocked sideways as he tried to figure out why would he offer such a thing, especially after what he did.
Fact: He forced four of the best agents in the universe and a sidekick to play a game to the death with him
Opinion: He wanted to tell him, specifically, how much he hated him for ruining the game
He felt the need to speak, to say something blunt that may have him walk away from him. Instead he said— “I’ll play Danger Mouse, then!”
Penfold shook his head ruefully, opening the door and closing it behind him before placing the boardgame down. “Well, at least I get to play myself.” He raised an eyebrow. “Want to help me set the game up?”
An opportunity to play with DM’s partner? If he could’ve nodded his head in excitement any longer he would’ve lost it. “Yes, yes, yes!! Let’s play already!” And promptly made a mess of the pieces.
“Sorry,” he said, ears pressed to the side of his head, feeling sadness drown him in rolling waves. He looked up, expecting him to shout and walk away, like so many others have done.
Instead, Penfold put the last piece in its place. He looked up to see Ian looking like he just kicked a cat (and he would know, having done so before; several, in fact). “Hey, hey, no need to be sad! It’s just a few of pieces that are—wait, are they alive?”
Ian sniffed a little, rubbing his hand underneath his nose. “I might’ve used the Shrinkatizier on the villains too.” He looked at his shocked face. “What? You thought I would get cheap plastic copies instead of the real thing?”
He rubbed his head, gathering the tiny Doctor Loocifer and Megahurtz into his hand. “But how did you get them in line? If I tried anything like that, I’d be toast.” He looked at them, yelping as teeth bit into one of his fingers. “They’re a handful, that’s for sure.”
The kid gave a small huff as Penfold started to giggle at his unintentional pun. “I’ll get them in the box,” he said in a dull monotone.
“Probably for the best,” Penfold agreed, sucking on his thumb as he shook the mini army of ne’er-do-wells off his arm. “Lucky I snatched up a packet of cards to play with instead.”
“Really?!” he perked up again. In his excitement, he nearly squashed a miniature Baron and had to get an earful of his complaining. “Alright, alright, you old toad. You’re lucky I haven’t actually squished you.” That got him mum.
“You… sure have a way with evil.”
Ian laughed it off, a giggle probably bordering on maniacal (he was practicing in front of the mirror for hours after finding out he was a criminal). “Of course I do! What else would I do? Now, what should we play?!”
“I was thinking more of Go Fish. A tame game, for one.” He raised an eyebrow when the boy started flashing his cards, bragging about getting a king. “Also a lot harder to screw up.”
Fact: Penfold was very good at playing teacher, and even better at being patient
Opinion: He, which by he, he means himself, Ian, mostly known by Danger Fan to the others, was pretty sure he was getting good at this learning stuff.
“For the last time, you only say ‘Go Fish’ if you have don’t have the card I called out. For example,” he pointed at Ian’s stack of cards, “Do you have any fours?”
The pup looked through his cards, half of which were facing the other way—which made it a very good thing that Penfold was less committed to taking advantages and winning at all costs than the rest of his cohort. “Er, nada,” he supplied helpfully.
Penfold slapped his face, peeking through his fingers apologetically and looking away at the same time. “This would be the perfect time to say ‘Go fish’ you know?”
“Oh, right.” And he picked up every bit of lung space he could manage and let it out with a bellowing, “GO FISH!”
He winced at the shout, nearly falling off the box full of tiny evildoers (who cheered at the possibility of seeing anything but—well, until he sat down again and dusted himself off), fixing up his glasses as he fixed a stern look at Ian. “Not that loudly,” he chided, and the kid nodded enthusiastically.
Wait, the draw pile wasn’t empty the last time he checked…
“Ian,” Penfold groaned, checking to see if he lost any cards of his own. “Did you really have to steal all of them?”
He gave an innocent smile. “No?” he asked.
“…Stand up.”
“Aww, come on! It’s not fair that you get to sit on the box.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but you are a criminal, you know. I can’t trust you with this.”
Ian whined, crossing his arms together. “What evil can I do with a stupid box anyways?”
Penfold simply raised an eyebrow as he felt the clasps of the box closed and threw it one-armed at a nearby wall, watching Ian all the while.
As it is, he gulped as tinny screams and yelling (both proper and profane) echoed in the container. “Does that answer your question?” he simply asked as he went back to observing his cards. Ian nodded silently before placing the draw pile to its original place and sat down, looking at his own pack of cards.
“Do you got a ten?” he meekly asked. Penfold stared at him for a while before conceding, giving him a ten of hearts.
Fact: Penfold can definitely hold his own against a fight, when it came to it.
Opinion: He’s still pretty sure that he’s not much use on the physical side of a fight. Or the mental. Or any side, to be honest, other than the hiding-and-quivering side.
Fact: He found himself wrong not only a few seconds later.
Opinion: And he’s never wrong.
And as the game continued (villains cheering Danger Fan on and booing every time Penfold got a full set of fours, peeking through a small breathable hole and fighting for the chance to see the game in play), Ian learnt more and more things.
Small things.
Like that smile Penfold gave him every time he thought he had a good plan in place. Or the small fidget he would do with his fingers whenever he really did have the card Ian was looking for.
Or, through the mumbles he would mutter, some small tells of the great hero Danger Mouse himself. Like how of course he would try to peek over his cards, how typical just like him (which made Ian squeal in itself, to be compared to his idol!).
But mostly, he learnt things about himself.
Like how much more relaxed he felt when he was playing this small game, trading cards and screaming when he either lost or won (both with got everyone holding their ears), building up a miniature empire of cards by his side.
He didn’t feel like a villain.
He didn’t feel like a fan.
Surprisingly, he didn’t even feel like a kid anymore.
He felt like another player in an honest game (or as honest as it could get with criminals literally crawling around and giving him mostly unwanted tips), without all the beratement and ignoring and subtle annoyance everyone threw at his way.
He felt, in a small way, wanted for once.
Penfold looked at him with a gentle knowing smile, taking another card from the stack. “Doesn’t everyone deserve to be wanted for once?” he said, and while Ian felt a sting at the fact he was so easy to read—he likes to have control, duh—he couldn’t help but fight a small smile in itself.
“Yeah, I guess,” he replied, finding himself with three cards labelled with the number seven. “Got any sevens?”
The hamster nodded, a small dip of his head, barely noticeable if you weren’t looking, as he took out the last card in his hands.
A seven of spades.
“YES!” he cried, jumping up and down, not even caring as a teeny lawbreaker he forgotten the name off called out what he already knew.
“The little evil kid wins,” they shrugged, as Ian started throwing all the cards around his cell and started an impromptu dance, laughing all the way.
“Good game,” Penfold grinned, watching the acclaimed Danger Fan do a horrible impression of a jig before switching it up with a spin and grabbing him in the process.
“And I couldn’t have done it without you,” he smirked, before pinching out the keys from his pocket and trying to jiggle open the locks without much luck. “Aww, come on! Now my luck runs out?”
Penfold shook his head as he watched him rage against the locked door, turning his attention to the drawings of DM on the wall. “You really care about him, don’t you?” he whispered, and Ian’s struggle lessened as he slumped on the doors of his cell.
“It must be creepy being near a kid who worships one of your workmates. Or lover, if you listen to the rumours.”
“My love—” he nearly choked, his hand slipping away from the tally marks and the bad illustrations of the heroic mouse and an adoring Ian. “What have you been listening to?”
He shrugged, a cheeky smile on his face as he tossed away the fake keys. “Enough people to know that I might be right.”
“You know how awkward it’d be if we were together? Not to mention his ego is as big as those life-sized statues they have of him around the world, and then some.” Penfold narrowed his eyes. “Hang on, you’re trying to get me again, aren’t you?”
Ian shrugged. “You snooze, you lose.”
“Come on, I thought we were having a connection!”
And Ian really did stop there, thinking about it.
Thinking about the fun they had, the games played, the fact that he stayed behind even though Danger Mouse clearly said to leave him alone in ‘solitary confinement’. Which was lonely, if one didn’t know.
Fact: Danger Mouse clearly didn’t care about him, no one did to be fair.
So why did he stay behind?
Opinion: …Maybe it was just a game, all of it
“Why?” he gritted out, somewhat hurt of the idea that it was all fake. Penfold gave a light shrug, tracing his finger over the chalk eyepatch.
“You seemed lonely. And I wanted an honest game, no lives at stake, no evil plan in the middle of it,” He raised an eyebrow at the fake copy of keys that he probably made for this occasion. “Some may say I wanted to not be lonely myself.”
“But you’re always with him!” Ian cried, sniffing and shoving a grubby hand underneath his nose as he thought of all the times he was jailed, all the evil schemes he concocted, all the scared looks as they noted the ambitious gleam in his eye every time he talked about his hero. “You’re always with the perfect DM, the world’s greatest secret agent—”
“You think I don’t know that?!” he roared back, smudging the chalk so it looked like tear marks. “You think no one else tried shoving that at me before? ‘You’re with the greatest secret agent ever, you’re hanging around with a real life hero, how is it, how does it feel?’ You know what it’s like? How it actually feels? It feels like I’m throwing my life away for nothing.”
He turned around, watching the mural of his best friend stretching the whole wall. “To be fair, this was never my battle in the first place.” He gave a sad smile, sniffling himself.
Ian walked over to him, hugging him (he was tall enough to, anyways) as tight as he could. “Maybe it was a game,” he whispered against his shoulder. “But I refuse to think you can be cunning enough to think that.”
Penfold hugged him too, careful to not let the young criminal find his real keys (for one they had pretty nifty merchandise signed by the star himself, and he also may have stuffed it up his cheek while he looked at the walls). “Then it’s a good thing you’re right. I’ll never be smart enough to pull something like that.”
The pup looked up. “But who needs to be smart? Only a coward would do that in my opinion.”
“And I’m not a coward?”
The kid gave him a playful punch that may have got him nearly swearing at the pain of it. “Not that type, doofus. And certainly not much of one that you think you are.”
Penfold opened his mouth to say something, except a loud knock echoed from the other side of the room. “Time’s up,” one of the other agents called, with a very miffed DM behind them. He looked between them and Ian, before quickly giving him another hug and walking towards the exit.
Somehow, Ian didn’t want that. He jumped on his leg, holding it with the largest pair of puppy-eyes he could possibly have. “Please don’t leave,” he begged.
Begged.
Fact: A villain never begs.
Opinion: Ian was, at that moment, just that desperate enough to.
The sidekick picked him up gently, settling him on the ground as he picked up the box full of teensy villains while pressing something else in the little puppy’s paws. “This isn’t a goodbye,” he promised, as he walked out of the cell (out of his life, out of the box, out of the miniature empire they built of cards and laughter and into those capable hands, so much better and yet so unattainable by Danger Fan). “This isn’t a goodbye,” he repeated, as if he was trying to reassure himself in front of that hard stare from his higher-up.
“Then what is it?” Ian demanded, clasping the small object in his hands and not giving him the satisfaction of looking at it.
A small smile, a wane one, as the gates closed.
Leaving him alone, in solitary confinement.
“It’s a see you later.”
Deep in The Cooler, The Block, The Care and Segregation Unit, that lonely corner, a small corgi marked another line on the wall.
A wall that got more emptier as hours past, as the dust settled, as his long-winded hastily-drawn epics got smaller and smaller until there was just a line and a heart above it.
If any agent decided to look inside, they would’ve seen him cry, then yell, then curl up in a small ball, watching a small screen blink with a mail icon on it.
A full tally of five later (which woke him in the middle of the unholy night after he talked his guards away, his tongue feeling fuzzy and numb as his brain):
03:38—You have one (1) new/unread message.
P: Play again?
And he, despite the madness settling at the edge of his mind, as Danger Fan started to whisper so many things to do and get his way with his idol his star his hero, Ian chuckled hoarsely, wiping a tear that sprung from the well of pain and joy.
I: You’re on, old man
And somewhere far away, in a pillar box in Mayfair, did a hamster hug his own phone to his chest in his room, one stash of pencils mysteriously missing as he unconsciously smiled at that message.
“Stay strong, Ian,” he whispered, looking up at his ceiling.
P: be brave
I: …
I: what else would I be??
A happy ending? Not so much.
Not by far.
But an opportunity he could wield, if it came to it? If he was willing to lose himself in the ugly truth of the dark side and what he was truly willing to do To be normal and happy and get by the good way?
To be free of these invisible chains, even as he did sneak out of his prison (since deaf ears never did anyone good)?
He’d play the games alright. Maybe he would as well.
But let it never be said that he never liked to play cards—in person, like that one time, or by phone—and would never play with Penfold again after he gave him a chance.
Relishing in the fresh 4 am air weeks after his incarceration, he gave a salute at where he assumed their HQ would be under the slight drizzle of rain. No more evil plans, he reasoned with himself as he walked over to his equally empty home, where he would try to recover after those dastard weeks of near radio silence. At least not for a few weeks.
Fact: Danger Fan was still there, lingering at the back of his head, raving about so much time and just one star to set sights on.
Opinion: It might be a long while yet until Ian lets go of the chain. What? It wasn’t like he didn’t like winning against Penfold once in a while.
And so Ian breathed easy, out of jail and into the streets, checking for one last message.
I: I’m here
A few minutes later, a few minutes read late in a very dressed up and fancy room with one person looking up from their work-in-progress of an amazing art piece on the wall of Ian’s own home (paint splattered on their tell-tale blue suit):
P: Welcome home, kiddo 😊
Now that’s a mushy ending for sure.