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He couldn't say he loved the task he was given as he walked to the customary meeting site for that agency's partners. He was late, true, but his partner was still not there. That annoyed him slightly.
This was not the first time he and his partner had been selected for a mission. The first time was so horrible that he could not believe they could accomplish the job. He was astonished to learn that the uppers had forced them to re-partner. Nonetheless, they were successful in completing their task. He stopped being shocked after the third time, and they continued to go on missions together.
Despite the large number of missions they completed together, their chemistry remained constant. He didn't think they were having a good time even once or twice. He wasn't considering any time at all; he was simply carrying out the duty assigned to him.
He didn't care about the partner as long as they didn't come in his way. Or so he always thought. After a few times, he couldn't imagine a mission without his blonde partner by his side.
But that day there was no sight of him. Normally he was never late so even though he didn't want to think the worst, as a spy where they put their lives everyday to work, it was good to be cautious. but it would not be good to be too cautious as now he told the agency about his partner and then finding him in a bar flirting with a girl wouldn't be too good.
The image of the partner flirting with a girl in a bar and coming late because it gave him a headache. He was, even though himself was the calmest person he knew, starting to get worried about him.
Zoro exhaled, leaned against the wall where they were meant to meet, and watched as each man around him lighted a cigar. It seemed like a regular thing, but Zoro disliked the flavor and was never able to smoke. He was smoking when he disguised himself to blend in with the crowd, but it was no longer essential. A man approached him and asked for a light, but he stated he didn't have any. The man gazed at him as if he were a foreign, then asked the man next to him.
He had been waiting for two hours when the sun began to set, and the mission was postponed until the next day. He hated when this happened as the uppers would be on them now.
"Fucking shit-cook, If you are late for a woman, I'd fucking beat you," he grumbled and thought to himself.
Zoro, like every spy, could pay attention to the people strolling about him; their conversations held the secret to the majority of what no irrigation could ever provide. Whether it's two blabbermouth young men talking or a woman who doesn't know what her husband is up to and asks a friend, they gave him the knowledge he needed.
This time was not any different. Two words drew him in to the conversation between two women.
"That blonde man looked so bad."
Zoro kept his hat on as he began walking towards where the women had been walking from. Despite the possibility that the man women were talking about was not his partner, he should have been aware of the situation. It might be a terrorist gang beating up one of their own residents, or vice versa. Whatever the case, he needed additional information.
He proceeded cautiously, listening to see whether anyone else was discussing a similar situation; no one was. So he considered the women's luggage as he took one look at them and recalled them in his photographic memory. He was familiar with the location of the store and the route taken by the women. After a few erroneous turns, he eventually found himself on the desired track.
After a few more failures and successes, he was relieved and concerned when he heard a man angrily saying he tried to help a bloody man but he was rude and preferred to stay on the ground. Zoro attempted to predict the common route of this man and the prior women. He had a notion of where this mysterious event had occurred. He made his way there, this time with fewer failed turns.
He made his way to an alley, knowing it was home to a bunch of terrorists whose agencies crossed there. Yes, they were working for the same country, but the spies' primary aim was to obtain everything they could for this distant government while keeping the peace. That was not true for these types of groupies. He was hesitant to enter the alley; he didn't want to make things worse between their groups, especially since he was alone.
When he heard a deep sigh, he stopped in his footsteps. He raced over to see a tall man in a suit laying on the ground, beaten up. His hat covered his face, so he couldn't see much, but he made some conclusions after seeing the figure. He lifted the hat to reveal the worse conditions he had ever seen his companion in.
He cursed as the blonde man gazed up slowly with his only visible eye, making the gesture feel like the most painful thing ever.
"Fuck, what the fuck happened to you?" was the only thing Zoro managed to ask.
"was just flirting," Sanji tried to joke.
"Shut the fuck up." Zoro said as he tried to do first aid to him. First aid wasn't going to be very helpful as he understood that and tried to take him on his feet.
"No, you can let me go," Sanji resisted.
"Shut up shithead. You made me wait for 3 hours for nothing, you won’t be saying anything.”
Sanji chuckled, tried actually. Sharply breathed and started to cough because of the pain in his lungs.
“I can’t believe you could be this reckless. You are a shame to us spies.”
“You’re exaggerating, I can’t bring more shame than you,” badly hurt, but still finding a way to bicker.
They were always like this, whatever the situation, they always found a way to annoy each other. Always arguing each other but always managed to clear the mission the best way possible.
They had an unusual chemistry with one another. When you asked one of them about the other, they would go on a rant about how much they resented them for up to five hours. However, if anyone else mentioned even slightly less version of what they had said, they would make them live the hell for speaking negatively about their partner. And they would do this while cursing at the said partner.
Zoro yelled as he went into a secret room in a basement. “Chopper! Shit cook needs your help here!” Then he laid him down to the closest bed as a short man, practically a child, ran to them gasping.
“What happened! Why is he so badly injured?”
Zoro sighed “Stupidity,” he said as Chopper started examining Sanji. He then walked near to a wall and sat down there, waiting for Chopper to finish his work.
Chopper was their well-known and trustworthy doctor; whatever happened, every agent in the agency knew they would go to him first. He was nearly a child, just twenty years old, but he had been assisting his late doctor father since he was very young, therefore he had an unofficial degree. And Zoro knew Chopper was the best doctor he'd ever seen.
After a few hours, Zoro saw Chopper walking and sitting next to him. "He will be fine, he just needs to sleep a few days and then will be just as good." Chopper reassured him.
“I wasn’t worried about him,” Zoro simply lied. “thinking what should I do with the mission.” Only the words he would hear from Chopper would make him breathe a bit relieved after all those hours waiting on thin ice.
“You should talk with the uppers," Chopper commented as Zoro nodded. “Do you know who and why they did this to him?”
That was a good question. He knew the who part but the why… That had to wait until Sanji woke up and decided to tell them the whole story. “Some gang.” He simply said and as everyone who had spent more than a few months in their field of work would understand what that meant, Chopper understood it too. And as the always supportive little kid as he was, he didn't inquire anymore.
Zoro's meditation was disrupted by the whimpering he heard, but he was expecting it, so he dashed over to the bed Sanji had been resting on for several days. Prior to that night, he had cleared the mission, which was to obtain a crucial written document from an anti-peace politician's personal case, with another agent connection. The job went flawlessly owing to her dark-haired elder woman partner, but the uppers were not pleased with how Sanji was beaten. His lack of knowledge of the entire scenario made matters worse.
Zoro called out for Chopper as Sanji opened his eyes. He got lost for a moment before noticing him, the location, and his current state. Zoro noticed panic in Sanji's blue eyes, and he fought to rise up as Zoro grabbed and pushed him back from his shoulders.
"Do not act more stupid than you already have."
Chopper approached them and began asking how Sanji was feeling. He calmed down and began answering the doctor's questions.
Sanji had seen some gangsters harassing two women in the alley where Zoro had discovered him, and he couldn't stop himself, despite knowing the rule of not dealing with them alone, especially without permission from higher-ups. He thought they were only five men, but they called for backup, so he dealt with it until he noticed them not letting one of the women go, at which point he let his guard down, and they put him into the position Zoro found him in.
"At least I also made them so bad and managed women to escape and make them go to a safe spot in our territory so I knew the bastards wouldn't follow them." He grinned sheepishly, but neither Zoro nor Chopper returned it. "It would be terrible if I had been beaten up and was unable to save women," he scratched the back of his head.
Chopper sighed, "I'll keep you here for one more day just in case, and then you'll have to talk to them one way or another." he stated before returning to his other patients.
They were both silent; Sanji was laying on the bed, smoking a cigar; he had to ask for it because Chopper was too exhausted, and Zoro was sitting on the ground, his back leaning on Sanji's bed, meditating.
After finishing the cigar, he placed it on the ashtray; his hands reflexively reached for Zoro's hair, but he restrained himself. Instead, he inquired, "So, what was the important document?"
Zoro awoke from his meditative state, turned to face Sanji, and shrugged. "Robin took care of that part,"
Sanji grinned, "Glad you could have partners that were covering the"vital" parts of a mission when I'm not around," he tried to joke, but was met by Zoro's more serious than usual expression.
"What, I joked." Sanji added as his hand reached for another cigar, but Zoro's terrifying gaze stopped it. "What do you want from me, moss head?"
Zoro didn't respond and continued to look at him. After a long gaze fixation that felt like forever to Sanji, ultimately Zoro lowered his gaze and whispered something under his breath, "I want you to be careful,"
Fortunately, Sanji had gotten used to what Zoro was saying under his breath, so he got this one too. He felt his eyes water and plopped down on the bed gently, hissing at the pain of the sudden movement. He opened his hand to grip Zoro's chin, forcing him to look at him again.
"You know, I could never turn my back on a woman in need and keep walking," he smiled pleasantly, hoping his words would reach Zoro.
He was glad when he heard him breathing out loudly, his expression softening, "Yeah, if I knew you had, I would be disappointed."
They both laughed lightly as Zoro took the hand holding his chin and kissed the palm.
"But still, please don't ever do this to me again, dumbass"
Sanji smiled and nodded, "Of course not, shithead."