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"Have you kissed her yet?" Tony asks, casual as anything, and Decker just about chokes on the spaghetti leftovers they've ferreted away to his quarters for a shared late dinner.
"Who?" He has no idea why he's asking that — maybe it's his lizard brain, stalling for time. Tony sure as hell doesn't mean Prism, or Nika 'I am sorry I broke your arm, you startled me' Muratova, or Muratova's brain-fried sweetheart, or their goddamn boss. Accordingly, the look Tony throws back at him is both exasperated and pitying.
"Maybe I'm being presumptuous. We talked it over, the other day. I thought it went rather well. I was under the impression she was planning to talk to you, as well." Tony is watching him now, has even set aside the datapad that normally lives within easy reach of him. Paying attention. Decker is in for it now, for sure.
"Right," he says, and buys himself some more time by scooping food into his mouth to hide his panic. The agency — what's left of it — splurged on a rare treat today and actually ordered takeout. From the fancy Italian place, no less. He'd been determined to enjoy it, not just scarf it down like the usual rations.
Easier said than done with his boyfriend sitting there and being all expectant and encouraging.
"We haven't talked, no," Decker says heavily, when he's had time to untangle at least one of the thoughts yanked into a snarl by Tony's question. "And I don't know what the hell I'm gonna say if or when we do. There. How's that?"
Tony frowns at him.
"I was... under the impression you still had feelings for her."
There's a bit of a question mark to his tone there, right at the end. Once again, expectant. When Decker doesn't say anything, Tony shifts, looking uncertain.
"If I misunderstood—"
"No," Decker answers with a sigh, and admitting it both makes him feel like shit and like a massive weight has lifted from his shoulders. "No. No, that sounds about right."
"Then what exactly is the—"
"Because it's not that simple, Tony. Alright? How about that." He throws up his hands, remembers he's still holding the plate, and sets it aside. "I know it's not... cheating. But I don't feel good about it. The fact that I'm not…"
He can't quite say it, and for a moment he thinks Tony will prod him further. Not... what? Not loyal? He sure likes to think of himself as the sort of person who will move the moon and the stars for the one he's in love with, the one he's in love with. One person, singular. It's old-fashioned, romantic, and he's nothing if not both of those things to the point of comical extremes, even if his bones ache most days from the metal and wiring spliced into them.
And then… and then the raid happened, and most of the people he's worked with for nine years got captured or fucking massacred. And the worst thing about it was that when the trap slammed shut on him, his first thought wasn't Tony, it was Oh god, Red, and, They'll kill her if they catch her.
And then weeks passed, and between one interrogation and another the agency had come for their own again, as they always do. Come to pick Decker out of the muck he's landed himself in, for the zillionth time, but he can hardly take credit for this one, can he? Not his fault, just this once, just for a goddamn change.
New headquarters, much smaller team, and... there they both were. Against all odds, alive and reasonably well.
He'd hugged them both, and only felt like like shit for it much later. The boss hadn't done more than raise an eyebrow at the unprofessionalism, so he must have looked pretty pathetic doing it.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up," Tony says briskly, then, and Decker snaps out of it. Tony's finished his dinner and set the plate aside; his expression thoughtful, his hands steepled against his crossed legs and drumming with a restless energy. "It's just. Well. Our relationship has never been exactly conventional, but I've always trusted you, and you do mean a lot to me... and you've known her much longer than you've known me." Tony's reserved voice gives way to something dangerously uncertain and Decker's already reaching for him like he's on strings.
"Hey, sweets, c'mon," Decker is murmuring, but he hasn't got the foggiest clue how to handle this. "I don't know what you want me to say." Tony was just telling him that he's fine with all this, right? Unless he really isn't, and— "Sorry, babe, are you asking me to make a move on Red?"
Tony exhales in a tight rush. He goes very quiet, and Decker can practically hear the gears grinding. When he finally speaks, his voice is controlled, as if every word has been carefully rehearsed. "I think one of you needs to make a move, yes, and apparently I need to encourage it from both sides to make it happen. I'm concerned that the longer it simmers, the more awkward it's going to get, and that it may affect our relationship if left unchecked. The reason I pushed is because I cannot quite help but be irrationally concerned that you're only with me out of some sense of obligation, or... or sunk costs." Decker almost interrupts him, then, and Tony speeds up. "In conclusion, I am almost certain I would feel better if I knew you had no reservations about... exploring other options." He blinks. "Oh, and I think Maria is feeling rather left out, too. Since I am now also spending much less time with her than before your rescue."
Oh. Decker lets that careful staccato of words settle. Well, fuck.
"Hadn't thought of it like that," he says weakly. Makes the guilt a lot worse, actually. Not only has he been leaving Red hanging, but also making his boyfriend insecure because who the fuck wouldn't be, knowing your darling is that fucking torn about it? He really is a godawful piece of shit who doesn't deserve any of what's—
Except Tony's still looking at him like that, and Decker barely, just barely, catches the self-loathing spiral before it can grow much uglier. Tale as old as time. They've been over this. He hisses out a breath and pushes closer, pulling Tony in for a sudden hug that's probably more for Decker's benefit than his, and that seems to help. He squeezes his eyes shut hard enough to see stars, and breathes in and out, and tries to make his mind go blank, and think of nothing but the way Tony's letting himself sink against him. It doesn't quite work, but it brings him back to immediacy. Enough to remind him that his stupidly supportive, smartass boyfriend is still right there, and the helpless, distraught look on his face on the odd occasion Decker has said any of this shit out loud in the past isn't something he wants to see again.
"We'll figure something out," Decker says, into the clean cotton smell of Tony's collar. "Or at least make sure we're on the same page. I'll talk to her. Promise."
Tony nods, and pulls back enough to look at him. He's still wearing that overly diplomatic expression, but he doesn't look as worried as he did before. "Good," he says simply.
Decker sighs and doesn't fight it when the impulse to run his fingers through that smooth black hair comes up, the way he used to fight it. A pretty good move, as it turns out, because it relaxes both of them. "Guess I'm going to have to get used to things being more complicated now, huh?" he mutters.
Tony gives him that handsome, infuriating smirk that spells trouble. "If it makes you more comfortable, it's not as though I am not also taking full advantage of the unconventional state of our relationship. Sharp and I—"
Decker holds up a hand. "Noted," he says dryly. "No offence, poindexter, but I really don't wanna know."
He's learned his lesson on calling Sharp a psychopath to his boyfriend's face — their boyfriend's face, damn it. But that doesn't mean he needs details.
Tony laughs sedately and lets his head loll against Decker's shoulder, reaching for his laptop. They pick up their pirated copy of the original 1941 The Maltese Falcon where they left off the week before.
Talking to Red is a good plan. A great plan, even.
And all the steadfast resolve in Decker's head crumbles the second he and Maria are face to face again.
She's got a severity to her these days that didn't used to be there. Or maybe he never noticed, too focused on her speaking softly to notice the big stick.
She spends days, sometimes weeks at a time away from the agency, working with her comrades — her real comrades. The people she doesn't necessarily like, but sees eye to eye with, more than she and Central ever will. More than she and anyone at Invisible Inc., and if he's being honest, that probably includes him, as well.
But she still comes home to them every week or so, and the next time she marches into the agency lounge, looking tired and road-worn but vaguely triumphant, he doesn't even pretend that he didn't miss her like hell.
"Overthrow any more companies?" Tony calls at her pleasantly from the couch, while Decker is standing in the opposite doorway gaping like a fish indecisive about whether to swallow a hook or not.
Red gives Tony a tired snort and is already walking over to collapse into the couch beside him.
"Maybe I did. How are your stocks doing, rich boy?" Tony makes a noise so horribly offended that it elicits a giggle from her. As she settles down, he lifts his laptop out of the way with dramatic exaggeration.
"The agency's stocks are doing perfectly well, thank you. Might as well exploit the system while it's not done crumbling, yes? And besides, I don't recall you complaining when those stocks financed your cell's equipment last month."
"Yes, that was always your favourite comeback," Maria teases, leaning into him, then sighs at length. Her expression relaxes, like she's letting down her guard for the first time in weeks. As if suddenly remember Decker is there, she looks up at him and her expression turns cloudy, askance. The empty space beside her — the couch is big enough for three — suddenly feels more conspicuous than ever.
Tony steals a glance at Decker over Maria's shoulder.
"Brian, could you pass me my charger? If you're not too busy gawking, I mean." And there's that pitying, pointed look again.
Decker finds his wits long enough to identify the charger among the writhing nest of cables on the table next to him and passes it along, and avoids looking too closely at Red, and the way her new penchant for baggy hoodies has turned her red hair into a halo of golden frizz. He definitely doesn't think about the way she probably smells like tire rubber and gasoline and stale sweat, like arson and sabotage.
He tells himself he's got somewhere else to be.
When he flees the room with more alacrity than when he fled his old corporate job, he can feel Tony's hard eyes on him again.
So he probably should have seen this next part coming.
Being in the field with Red is easy; he's been doing this for a decade. When the stakes are high, it's like nothing ever changed between them and they barely even need the neural interface to communicate without effort.
"Good, you have the data. Proceed to the exit." Tony's voice in his ear, brisk and professional. His boyfriend is in the Operator hot-seat more and more often, these days, and that took a while to get used to. Things changed up, post-raid, and the boss is more desperate than ever to make sure that every single one of them can step into any set of shoes. If things go horribly wrong again.
Red probes the camera network in the next room with her enhanced senses. Another moment, and the cameras are hijacked, their CCTV footage looped. She slips through and Decker follows suit, covering her back. He cloaks long enough to slip close to the turret overwatching the door, and jacks into the port, connecting his nervous system with that section of the network. He shudders and squeezes his eyes shut like a very fucked up kind of wine taster, trying to distinguish the subroutines by synesthetic feel alone.
"No daemon on the turret," he mutters into comms, already slipping a buster chip into the turret's SD port. "Something on the power supply, though— can't quite tell what. I'm not sure I've seen this before."
A brief, thoughtful silence from their Operator. Decker knows exactly what's going through his head right now — a rapid calculation of the balance of daemons they might encounter in the field, in this kind of facility and at this particular subsidiary of what used to be K&O. The benefit of having full control over the turret versus the risk of an unknown.
He knows what Tony's thinking. Most daemons are inconvenient, but manageable. They're two rooms away from the exit. No hostiles, but potentially other security. The turret would be a valuable tool for stalling, to secure their retreat.
"Go for it," Tony says, a moment later.
"Copy that."
Decker digs another little item out of his improvised hacking arsenal and uses his parasite chip charge on the power supply next to it. It's gonna take a hot minute, but they'll have full control once it chews through the wiring — so to speak.
From the other side of the room, Red wraps up scouring another terminal for data. "I have a layout of the next few rooms," she says.
"Good. Then let's get the hell out of here."
With the turret under their control, the way out should be uneventful.
And it is, for the most part. A camera drone patrolling quietly, minding its own business. Red senses it a room away and they lose some time dodging its vision zone rather than waste precious remote hacking power.
Decker has nearly forgotten about the unknown daemon on the turret power supply. The parasite on it takes longer than it was supposed to — apparently, hacking the turret boosted the other device's firewalls. They're almost at the exit, though. Tony reports that there is a security detail on their tail, but they're still a few rooms away. Looks like they won't need the turret after all.
"Good riddance to this place," Decker mutters, as he and Red step into the transport elevator and brace for teleportation.
The internal control panel goes dark.
And then the doors slide shut behind them, and the room goes dark.
"Red—" There's a part of Decker that panics, truly panics. A faulty teleporter can only mean something very bad is about to happen to their molecules — but even as he reaches to grab Red (to do what, he has no idea, it's not like he can push her out again)... nothing else happens.
There's a hiss of breath on the other end of comms and Decker can suddenly picture Tony, clear as day — perched on the edge of the seat, his face a focused mask of concentration, a pen tapping away at the desk at 200 bpm.
"Stand by," Tony says. As if they can do anything else. But he's got to admit, he feels better for hearing his voice anyway.
Red throws him a wild glance, hazy in the soft red glow of the emergency LEDs by the floor. Decker suddenly wonders if she's claustrophobic, and how the hell he never knew that, but then she squares her shoulders and relaxes again.
And gently pushes at him, because he did grab her... and... right, sorry, Red.
He's about to shuffle well away from her when Tony's voice interrupts him.
"You're not in imminent danger," he says, straight to the point. "The parasite you put on the power supply finally got through, and the subroutine triggered. You were right, we've never seen this before. The elevator is on lockdown. Temporarily. Val is looking into it on our end."
"Temporarily?" Decker echoes.
"The doors are shut and the interface is inert. It's still powered, though. Just not operable."
"That explains it," Maria mutters. "I can feel the network around us, but I can't do anything with it."
"So we're sitting ducks?" Decker grunts.
"Well, no. The good news is that we control the power supply to the turret now. There's two Enforcers in that room, but it's going to take them a minute or two to get through there without risking injury or worse." Tony sounds positively cheerful as he says this.
"Great. Just great. How long until we can get out?"
Tony doesn't answer him. Decker waits, at a loss, then prods him with the least unprofessional moniker he still remembers. "...Doc?"
"Tony?" Even Red, patient as ever, is chipping in.
"Hmm."
"What do you mean, hmm?" Decker retorts.
Another beat of silence on the line.
"I don't know, Brian, I think this could be good for you."
While Decker gapes, Red isn't quick enough to smother the burst of laughter into her sleeve, which he's aware of keenly because he's still got a hand curled half-desperately, half-protectively around her shoulder. It's the tension getting to both of them, he reckons. The tension from the job. Obviously.
"Tony," Red says again. There's about a million inflections in her voice and Decker can read maybe three or four of them. "Do you really think this is the time?"
"Well, practically speaking, I have two choices, Maria: One, pool our collective resources to reverse-engineer the workings of this new daemon enough to end it prematurely, while risking drawing unnecessary attention or the attempt backfiring. Two, let the daemon run its course for the next, oh, five to ten minutes, focus my efforts on stalling the human security using the parts of the network we still control, and simply enjoy the beneficial side effect of Brian having nowhere to run from a conversation he should have had weeks ago."
"There's no way in hell Central's okay with you just letting us cook here," Decker growls. "Put her on the line."
"Central is not in the room right now," Tony says cheerfully. "She had to go take an urgent call from Monst3r. I imagine she'll be quite distracted for a while, and after that, I'll have no trouble convincing her this was the best option tactically and strategically."
Red is giggling again, and Decker swears out loud. Colourfully. Tony's right — he's very good at that kind of bullshit. Especially when he's not wrong.
"I'll give you two some privacy and mute your comms," Tony says with the kind of smugness that's got enough plausible deniability to be even more irritating. "Don't forget to unmute them when you're ready to go."
There's a faint click, and the line goes quiet. The elevator room is eerily silent except for the ambient noise — the thrum of electricity in the walls, the very distant alarms, and the sound of two people breathing.
Decker finally works up the nerve to look at her again. Now that he's adjusted to the near-dark, he can see the glint of amusement in Maria's eyes, framed by that unruly red hair, cast crimson. It's breathtaking and he feels like even more of an idiot.
"I think it's sweet of him," Red says, through her laughter.
"Sweet, right. All I can say is he's lucky he's good-looking."
She laughs again. "You really know how to pick them. You don't make it easy, you know."
"Self-deprecation, Red? That's not usually your style," he quips.
"And I could say that running and hiding isn't yours, but that wouldn't be right, would it?"
"Yeah, that's not a charge I'm ever likely to beat." Decker looks down to where his hand is, so crude-looking and scarred. It's on her shoulder. It takes almost the deliberation of controlling some freakishly distant flesh puppet to run it through her hair, instead, and trap the tousled mass of it between his palm and the delicate curve of her neck.
Maria goes silent. And possibly a little pink, it's hard to tell in that lighting.
"Oh, to hell with it," Decker mutters, distant as a dream. "It's always been you, too."
He's not sure if he meant to kiss her or bury his face against her hair, but he pulls her close and she meets him halfway. The taste of her lips hits him like the drink he didn't know he was missing, like a dusty bottle of rum shared over fire and rebellion.
Maybe this is not the conversation they were supposed to have, maybe it's just another way of running.
But running towards her is a start.