Chapter Text
A rose haired woman carried herself with poise despite her slightly disheveled appearance, her back straight, chin up, and footsteps light as a feather. The faint squeaking of her grey rubber slip-ons and an elderly man's black oxfords resonated as they made their way through the hall.
She had her hands shoved in the pockets of her white coat, fiddling with the digital thermometer inside, bending the flexible rubber tip. She took them out and placed them on her sides, pausing before the double door leading to her destination.
"We've been expecting you, Belladonna." A suit-clad man welcomed, twisting the door's handle to push it open, and she gave him the briefest of nods as she straightened her navy blue attire.
A bright, glaring ray of light seeped through the widening gap and the woman was greeted by a lush and blooming botanical, a radiant light touching every corner of the vast expanse. The scenic view complemented her bright evergreen eyes.
"It hasn't changed in the slightest, Matthew." She stated to the elderly man following her, and he nodded with a quiet hum in agreement.
Belladonna made her way through the bricked path, peacefully inhaling the soft, fragrant breeze. One corner of her lip subtly curled at the sight of the dark-skinned man cutting thorns off of a freshly plucked pink rose, the daintiness of his scissors a stark contrast to its closely maintained sharpness. She eyed the rest of the roses scattered on the ground, beheaded with the thorns of their detached stems cut off as well. The lift in her lips turned to a smirk.
Her eyes landed on the gardening hat that he always seemed to wear, tracing the straps that held it in place. At the end of the two black strings were the same stilletos that she donned on her left wrist, where her golden chain bracelet loosely clasped around.
The sound of snipping could be heard from their meter distance, and she waited for the man to finish before giving her greetings. In her head, she hummed along to the tune of the passing birds, keeping her eyes on the butterflies to pass the time.
She waited for the man to behead the rose and carefully lay it on the ground beside the others as he did for those before it, raising an eyebrow when he gave it a light sniff instead before lifting his head up to meet hers.
"And here I was, thinking that you'd gift me the rose after you finished. What an ungrateful host you are, Shopkeeper." The woman known as Belladonna jested.
"Why, what a presumptuous guest." Shopkeeper laughed, going along with the woman's charade.
"Indeed I am, a guest," she hummed, "then may I pick amongst your variety of flowers? You appear to have a lot in this beautiful garden." Belladonna reached up to a hanging vase of purple petunias, turning her head once she heard the man approaching.
Shopkeeper didn't hide the glint in his eyes at her question, but followed it with a smile. "I'm afraid not for she will wilt. She wilts then she will wither, and eventually, she will rot."
A smile rested on the woman's face, "A flower may die on its own in the wrong environment."
The man nodded, passing a look to Matthew who remained silent behind Belladonna, before walking over to him. Shopkeeper felt the woman's arm brush his when he passed her, and the moment he was out of her peripheral, he raised his hand and attempted to stab her head from behind.
But all was evaded with a step to the side, Belladonna holding a smug grin as she raised the pink rose to her nose, Shopkeeper's dainty scissors hanging from her pinky. All eyes were now on the thermometer that the man had attempted to lodge into her head, its blue tip bending as he examined it with pride.
Shopkeeper gave her a closed lip smile, eyes as perceptive as ever. "Welcome, Belladonna."
"The formalities are quite overdue, don't you think?" She replied as she absentmindedly plucked the rose petals, letting them fall freely from her fingers and atop the bushes of chrysanthemums by her side.
The man playfully rolled his eyes and laughed, "I do apologize for that. I've been worried that your time at the hospital, saving lives instead of taking them, has dulled your instincts..." Belladonna hummed and threw him his scissors, Shopkeeper catching it one-handed with ease. They did the same for her thermometer. "But I see they've remained as honed as ever. Improved, even. Now I can reassign you to this new client with confidence."
"Reassign?" Belladonna suppressed her growing vexation, masking it with a calm and professional voice.
Although he didn't detect any impertinence in her tone, Shopkeeper kept wary, completely aware of how tactless his order would be for her. "Yes, I'm afraid that the Desmond's no longer need our supervision, much more the undivided attention and dedication of our group's finest assassin."
She scoffed at his unnecessary flattery. "Boss..." she spoke in a low tone, "You can see what I'm wearing, right? I know you're not colourblind."
"I haven't the foggiest. Allow me a moment to assess," Shopkeeper hummed as pretended to assess her attire and stall their confrontation as much as he could. Arguments with the woman were never a pleasant experience. "Navy blue scrubs, a doctor's coat, and..." he looked down to her feet and nodded, "grey rubber slip-ons."
"That's right. And you know why I'm wearing this, right?" Belladonna challenged, growing impatient. She liked to believe that she had a rather patient and forgiving personality, but it was during times like these, when her plans and ambitions went askew, that she would lose those traits.
The man sighed in reply, choosing not to push the woman's limits any further. "Because of the Desmond assignment. But for whatever paradoxical reason, you've planned on becoming a neurosurgeon all your life. Now while that may sound noble and is indeed an honourable undertaking, you are a killer, Vivette Zacharias."
She furrowed her brows at his lack of regard, keeping her voice level and clear of any emotion despite it. "I could have been wearing teal right at this moment. I could have been assisting on surgeries instead of being a single doctor's apprentice. I could have been practicing something I was passionate about instead of something I only wrote in that fucking My Top 3 list you wanted me to fill out because I thought it was interesting and useful enough to fill that one empty spot."
"Then are you saying that you can leave all previous commitments, leave a patient on the table, if I were to call upon your presence? It was the only reasonable choice, child."
"I believe you know that I'm more competent than that, and it's not like I'm the only weapon you have in your arsenal. I can finish a surgery before coming to your service."
Shopkeeper scoffed. "So you mean that you'd kill people at night and go to work saving people the next day?"
Belladonna's eyes flicked to stare sharply into his, showing a hint of her veiled emotions before masking them again. "Don't even try using that on me. You were the one who told me that the people we kill should be considered as pests and unwanted parts of our society needed to be pruned."
"And yet I still haven't completely blurred your judgement."
She smirked at his bluntness, knowing that she was the only one he talked to that way amongst all the assassins. It was for a significant reason, one that prevented him from getting into her head. "You forget that I never wanted to be one of your flowers in the first place. I wasn't some struggling child you picked up from the street. I had no family I needed to kill for to survive. I didn't have an unquenchable thirst to kill, nor do I desire revenge on a specific person. I've already taken lives and seen death multiple times before you. It wasn't me who needed your money, you needed me." And there it was.
"Caught in another one of their arguments... again," Matthew's loud voice resounded in her head, and she cringed, both at the ringing in her ears and the man's exasperation. She pushed her tongue against the hollow of her cheek, and, feeling bad for him, decided to bury the hatchet.
Before Shopkeeper could open his mouth or give her a migraine in his rebuttal, she spoke up. "Just... tell me what you need me to do. I don't care anymore, it's not like I can ever live a normal life anyway. Besides, you're right. I'm already a hypocrite getting into family medicine while ruining families in my spare time. What more if I actually started doing surgery? I might confuse saving with killing and stab my patient's brain out." The words tasted like venom on her tongue, but she didn't let any of the bitterness nor poison leave as she spat them out.
The man nodded at her sudden change, taking his time to see if she was sincere with her words before proceeding. "It's another reconnaissance mission, and you get the green light to eliminate if need be this time around. A Westalian diplomat has been killed in a car accident. We suspect that WISE would be sending one of their agents here," He watched the Belladonna raise a brow in question, "and it wouldn't be farfetched to assume that they would send Twilight, the best they have," he answered her unspoken inquiry.
"You, our finest, are tasked to ensure that they won't have any further plans other than simple probing and to keep the Stasi in line so as not to provoke them more," he continued.
"And you never thought that Donovan Desmond, a prominent figure and likely threat to peace, might have been the one behind that so-called accident?"
"We have no evidence of his activity as of late. It would be better to deal with obvious complications rather than waste our time looking for something that may not even be there. However, do not fret. He is still a candidate for our watchlist, but leaving you in charge of him instead of making use of your talents for more important clients would be a dereliction of my duty. Do you understand?"
"I do."
"Well then," Shopkeeper took a seat on one of the chairs in his gazebo, lifting his gaze to meet Belladonna's who leaned on the pillar, arms crossed over each other. "I'm counting on you, Belladonna, to do your part in keeping this world a beautiful place."
She licked her bottom lip and nudged her chin, "Whatever you say, boss."
"Sherwood."
"...Nightshade. What's so important that you needed to make a direct call?"
"Going to Franky would take too long. It's about the Desmond's,"―she took a deep breath, thinking her excuse through―"My position has been compromised," static flooded their ears as they both became silent, and the woman on the other side of the call rubbed her temple in annoyance, "I won't be able to keep an eye on them anymore."
Another pause.
This time, it was Sherwood who broke it.
"Soon, the sun will sink... and it's light will scatter from below the east's horizon."
"Hmm..." Nightshade chuckled quietly, "poetic."