Chapter Text
His site was quiet.
Too quiet.
No telltale noises of heavy footsteps, gunshots, and utility being thrown into his site—thank goodness, he thinks, he’s sick of the flashes—it’s clear that no soul other than his own occupied the site. Just to be thorough before he relays the information to his allies, he checked his camera that he had hidden deeper into the site where the enemies would have surely entered from, and surely enough it was empty.
Cypher chuckled. They had learnt their lesson the last time they had entered and got caught in his trip wires, surely.
The information broker tapped his earpiece with a satisfied hum. “My site is clear.”
“They’re at B site,” Killjoy immediately informed. Cypher internally chuckled at that, too. His wires were annoying to deal with, but not deadly, as it mainly aimed to stun and give information on the opponents’ positions, and Cypher finished the job by shooting them. Killjoy’s nanoswarm grenades paired with her alarmbot, on the other hand, were deadly and brutal, and even if it didn’t kill the opponent, it would injure them enough to be finished off by the duelists. Two sentinels holding down both sites with an iron fist, what a difficult choice for their opponents, he thought. “Raze and Phoenix already finished off four enemies. Breach is trying to find the last one.”
Cypher took in the information, nodding to no one in particular. They’re in good shape so far. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be vigilant. “I see, dear. I will anchor over here in case they will rotate.”
“That’s best,” Killjoy agreed “I’ll update for any developments.”
“So will I,” Cypher promised, before immediately checking his camera on his site again.
Still empty. If the enemy were to rotate, they would’ve done so by now. Cypher sat back in his position, listening for any noises when he remembered he had placed a second camera at B site, as a precaution, he insisted, when Killjoy whined that she got the site under control. She did, of course, Cypher had no doubt about that. Still, he wanted to see what was going on over there if anything did happen.
He looked into his second camera. The scene in the site is quiet, yet vigilant. Corpses of the enemies littered throughout the site with the spike laying smackdab in the middle of the area—well, that answered Cypher’s question of why the enemy chose not to rotate. Killjoy was sitting in back site, fixing her turret that had presumably been shot at by the enemy, and Raze was walking around, vandal in hand, eyes darting at every possible entrance in case the enemy came back. Phoenix and Breach were nowhere to be found, but Cypher simply assumed they’re somewhere in mid, hunting down the final opponent.
Despite the vigilant air, Cypher watched Raze stop for a moment and look at Killjoy, smiling as she said something presumably amusing to her girlfriend. Killjoy looked up from her turret and rolled her eyes, still, there’s a smile on her face as she converses with her partner.
Cypher chuckled at the scene. Ah, young love, it’s never not an adorable sight, especially for little engineer, who was an awkward kid with big dreams and an even bigger ego when she welcomed him into the protocol. She had been the agent who entered the Protocol right before him, and Cypher at the time couldn’t help but raise a brow at the idea. The younger agent was 19 at the time, almost 20 which still practically a child in Cypher’s eyes. To join an organization such as the VALORANT Protocol at that age was absurd, especially when the other members were much older adults with years of experience and wisdom in comparison.
Concerned, he remembered looking into information regarding the younger agent. Klara Böhringer, the genius of Germany, award winning inventor, and the lead for Kingdom’s Research and Development team at the young age of 18. After a friendly chat with Brimstone, he also learned that the young tech genius was also the VALORANT Protocol Leader’s protégé, taken in after being orphaned. Suppose, Cypher thought at the time, the younger agent presented enough achievements and experience under her belt to be welcomed in the Protocol.
(Though, in retrospect, the age concern seemed silly as more younger agents joined the Protocol as time went by. Still, Cypher considers them as basically children. Killjoy especially, who he had developed a soft spot for over time, for reasons that elude everyone but himself.)
From the camera, Raze could be seen playfully blowing a kiss at her girlfriend’s direction, with Killjoy giggling in response. The two young love birds have been more openly affectionate with one another recently, with the anti-fraternization clause being recently revoked in response to Killjoy and Raze’s getting together—to no one’s surprise, of course.
Though even before that, Cypher already noticed something going on between the two engineers, playfully teasing Killjoy about the fellow engineer that she used to vent to him about. Killjoy would deny it with colored cheeks as she cited the fraternization rule, but later in the day he would spot the two giggling in their lab listening to music in a pair of shared earphones, a hand on top of another, with the look in their eyes that say they’re absolutely smitten.
(Cypher didn’t say anything at the time, mostly because he didn’t want to interrupt their moment, but also because this was a perfect opportunity to “borrow” a few of Killjoy’s condenser cables again without either of them noticing. A win-win, in his books.)
The information broker’s train of thoughts were interrupted as soon as he saw a flash of blue moving around the back through his camera. Hurriedly, he pressed his earpiece to warn them of the enemy’s presence, but the Ω-Yoru already made his presence known by shooting at Killjoy.
Thankfully, somehow all of the Ω-agent’s shots missed the younger sentinel, who immediately ran behind a box for cover as she grabbed her phantom. Killjoy could hear Raze retaliating with shots from her vandal. The genius took a deep breath, then another she readied her phantom. She never liked gunfights; she admitted she was never the best shot, and her contributions in the battlefield mostly came down to her strategies and bots. As she was about to peek out of the box, she hears the all-too familiar, yet all too sickening sound of a head shot, followed by a loud thud of a body hitting the floor as the sound of gunshots ceased.
Killjoy froze, because it wasn’t their enemy. The person who had just gotten shot wasn’t their enemy. Ω-Yoru still stood there, seemingly proud of himself, maybe even forgetting there was one other person in site. The sentinel fought with every fiber of her being against looking to where Raze had been standing, and focused her attention to the Ω-agent, hand shaking from an overwhelming swirl of emotions and several lines of thoughts going through her mind, and pulled the trigger.
Ω-Yoru only remembered the other agent’s presence when it was too late, and he fell limp against the ground, color draining from his skin. Killjoy exhaled a shaky breath she had been holding in and dropped her gun, immediately pressing into her earpiece. “Enemy down.”
On cue, Phoenix and Breach ran in site, only to be greeted by a sound of sobs as they scanned the area. Killjoy was on her knees by the side of Raze, who was on the ground, a bullet wound between her eyes, and color drained from her form. Phoenix, originally cheery with the intention of teasing and congratulating the sentinel with getting a kill, dropped his smile as he looked at Breach with uncertainty. Both agents quietly approached the grieving colleague.
It was not uncommon for agents to die during missions—though it wasn’t preferable, it was still the reality. Each and every one of them has experienced the death of a colleague in one way or another, and maybe even experienced death themselves. It’s something they had to get used to. Still, they understood that this was Killjoy and Raze’s first mission together after they had started dating, and it would no doubt have been rough on one of them to see the other die or get hurt.
“Sorry, KJ,” Phoenix said, quietly, as he crouched next to her, offering a hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be okay, yeah? Let’s get back to HQ and let Sage do her magic.”
“Raze’ll bounce back before ya know it,” Breach offered, “you and I both know how she is.”
Killjoy nodded without a word as she took off her glasses and wiped her tears with her sleeve. Their assurances barely helped but she still tried appreciating it, she did know Raze would be ultimately okay because of Sage, and there was no logical reason to mourn a beloved that you know will come back. But emotions, Killjoy learned a long time ago, did not abide by logic or rationality. It shouldn’t hurt, but it still does. Tears were still streaming, chest still heaving, and her heart hurt.
Those feelings, familiar.
All too familiar of the days she had pushed way down her mind, of the days she had tried desperately to forget so it won’t hurt as much.
Police greeting her as she came home from school, looks of pity and sadness on their faces. Two caskets being buried together, the same glances of pity directed at her and only her from relatives and family friends. Packing away her belongings and everything she knew to go on to live with a family friend who had agreed to take her in.
Another sob made its way out of the sentinel. Phoenix helped her get up as Breach picked his friend up to bring to the aircraft. On the way, Killjoy lagged a bit behind the other two agents, as if weighed down by grief in more ways than one. Once she got inside, she sat on one of the benches, farther away, looking down and refusing to look at anyone, especially the lifeless form of her lover that her colleague had put down.
Footsteps entered the aircraft as it was starting. Killjoy only had one guess as to who it was; Cypher, who always came in last when they prepare to depart, taking his sweet time to either to retrieve his cameras and setups, or to look for more potentially valuable information within the area. The newcomer took his time taking in his surroundings, before ultimately—to Killjoy’s surprise—approaching her, quietly sitting right next to the younger sentinel.
“Hello, little engineer,” Cypher greeted. The younger woman remembered Cypher installing a camera in her site earlier that day, and concluded he must have seen what had happened. “You did well back there.”
“Cypher,” Killjoy greeted back, smiling a bit at his commendation. “I still don’t understand why you call me that.”
“Well, you are an engineer, and you’re little. What is there to not understand?” Cypher’s tone was playful and light, no doubt an attempt to tease her and lighten the mood. The woman also got the sense that he’s not being entirely truthful.
“I’m twenty-two, and 170 centimeters tall,” Killjoy replied, defensively, “not little.”
“That’s little to me. Practically a baby.”
Killjoy scoffed. Everyone knew the older sentinel have always had a soft spot for the genius, and with that also came this habit of babying her, emphasizing her innocence and youth. It was both amusing, knowing she can just get away with things she knew the others wouldn’t have with Cypher, and annoying, with Cypher’s endless teasing and refusal to introduce her to anything he deemed inappropriate.
The younger sentinel sighed as she glanced at the older man. Well, while Cypher did have a habit of teasing her, he wasn’t a bad person to ask advice from. Maybe…
“Cypher,” Killjoy started, slowly, not exactly sure where this conversation will go, “does it ever get easier? Losing people, I mean.”
She knew Cypher had lost people, people he cared deeply about. She noticed his pestering with Sage in regards to her resurrection abilities, and she was there when Sage had revived him for the first time, gasping as he sat up in shock, as if he had woken up from an emotional dream, with the first thing he said was that he saw “them”.
Surely, he’d know how to deal with grief then, right?
“You will get used to it, dear,” Cypher replied. “Raze will come back. In this line of work, you will lose her many times, and perhaps as many times she will lose you. But every time, you and Raze will come back.”
“That’s not what I mean,” the younger sentinel shook her head. “Losing Raze, in that moment…I don’t know, it reminded of when I lost my parents. It’s almost like…the hurt and pain I experienced back then, of losing them, it came back strong, and now it feels like I’m grieving all over again.”
Cypher listened intently, nodding as she talked and explained, “again, you will get used to it,” the older sentinel advised, “the hurt you are feeling…it’s the love you hold for those you have lost. It doesn’t ever go away, not really.”
Killjoy let the older man’s words sink into her mind. Wordlessly, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, and relaxed her shoulders that had been tense all this time. His words…it made everything clearer, and while the grief isn’t gone, she had understood why. “Thank you, Cypher.”
“Anything for you, sweetheart.”
The younger sentinel smiled. “You know, you remind me a lot of mein Papi,” she said, unconsciously smiling as she recalled hazy memories of a scratchy beard tickling her cheeks, of boisterous cheers when the first ever bot she had created whirred to life. “He always listened to me and all my ramblings, and he always knew what to say. He always made me feel better, encouraged me to be my very best,” Killjoy heaved a sigh as her voice cracked, her parents were still a painful topic for her, feelings full of grief and nostalgia, “I miss him dearly, but I always feel a part of him is still here with me when I’m with you or Brim.”
Under his mask, Cypher’s expression softened. Emil Böhringer, he remembered skimming through the man’s information when he looked through Killjoy’s background. Emil was a renowned mechanical engineer, his reputation well known throughout the field of robotics with a handful of impressive patents and inventions under his belt. With a mechanical engineer father and an equally reputable computer scientist mother, there’s absolutely no doubt where their daughter Klara had gotten her genius mind from. Additionally, Emil has worked quite a few times with Kingdom Industries, and that’s how he had presumably met his friend Liam Byrne who would eventually take in Klara. Unfortunately, that’s all the information that was provided, as Emil alongside his wife Zehra had lost their lives prematurely due to a car accident when Killjoy was merely 14.
“That was a weird thing to say—scheisse, sorry. “ Killjoy hastily added, noting Cypher’s silence.
“Safi, dear, it’s fine, I’m touched, very,” Cypher insisted, immediately trying to think of a way to assure the girl. “You know, you are not my first little engineer.”
Killjoy turned her head to look at him, surprised. “What do you mean?”
Cypher’s mask did not show it, but he was conflicted. This was sensitive and sentimental information he was going to share about himself, about his family, and who was he but someone anonymous? Someone no one knows anything about? Hell, no one in the protocol has even ever seen his face, despite some of the members’ constant insistence. But Killjoy, a colleague he cares deeply about, had poured her heart onto him, basically admitting she saw him as the father that she had lost before.
Information always has a price. So, it’s only fair that he pays up too.
The older sentinel tapped his finger on his leg, “There’s this child I had…a very smart girl just like you, though she did not invent at a young age like you did, she excelled very well in school, and dreamed one day to be an engineer,” It’s been a long time since Cypher talked about his family, about his dear daughter, and it feels…therapeutic, in a way, “hence, little engineer.”
“Where is she now?”
Cypher did not respond, only looking at her, before looking down. His mask did not reveal any sort of emotion, yet Killjoy already knew what he meant.
“I’m sorry.”
“You did not know, it’s quite alright,” Cypher said, “you remind me of her a lot as well. I suppose that’s the reason why I’m fond of you.”
It made sense now, Killjoy thought, all those times Cypher had looked out for her, why he was the most soft and gentle with her compared to their other colleagues, and most especially, the nickname. While Killjoy thought of him as the father she had lost, he was treating her like the child he had also lost.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, taking in new information that they had just shared until the Vulture opened, signaling that they had finally arrived at base. Breach was the first to get up, picking up his friend and walking out. Killjoy, wanting to be by her girlfriend’s side as soon as she was brought back to the land of the living, was briefly stopped by Cypher, who had held his hand up before she could get up from her seat.
“Remember little engineer, what was shared between us, stays between us.”
Any other person would’ve taken those words as a threat, and maybe it was. Even then, Killjoy smiled and nodded, waving cheerily at the older sentinel as she followed Breach into the HQ building and into the clinic for Sage bring her girlfriend back to life.
-
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The next morning, Cypher was brewing himself an exquisite cup of tea in the common kitchen when he spots a flash of yellow from his periphery. “Yo, Cypher!” Raze greeted as she made a beeline towards the fridge. There’s that telltale bounce in her step as she walked, and music blared from her headphones as she passed by the older agent.
“Raze,” Cypher greeted back, “still bouncy and energetic, I see. It’s as if you hadn’t died yesterday.”
“Duh, gotta let that energy out while I was, well, out,” Raze opened the fridge and retrieved a few items. A plate of pancakes Skye had made caught her eye on the counter, so she grabbed one and held it with her teeth as she continued to the pantry to retrieve some snacks.
The sentinel only nodded in response as he finished his tea. Wordlessly, he took his cup and was about to walk back into his office, leaving Raze to raid the kitchen alone, until the duelist spoke.
“Cypher, by the way,” Raze was looking at him, even while she was getting some snacks from the pantry, her arms barely balancing the variety of items. Hm, Cypher thought, that’s too much food for one person. “Muito obrigado. Killjoy told me about what happened yesterday. Thanks for cheering her up.”
Usually, Cypher would analyze her words carefully, and be alarmed about the implication that Killjoy had told Raze all about what he had shared with her. But then he realized he didn’t much care, that he trusted Killjoy fully to keep his secrets to herself. “Mesh mushkil, it’s fine,” Cypher tipped his hat, and turned away as he started walking.
Trusting people with your secrets…not a good move, Amir.
A part of Cypher whispered in his mind as he went inside his office and sat down on his desk. After making sure his door is locked and secured, he then took off his mask, and blew on his steaming cup of tea, his mind strangely calm as he assured himself.
It’s fine. I trust my daughter.