Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the end, she vanishes into the night like she always did, like she should have from the start.

She lays him to rest. She buries him, because he is finally safe but won’t be if she sticks around, because she has that mission of hers, and she can’t afford any distractions.

Carmen is so, so good at rationalizing. But she can’t rationalize this, the way he haunts her halfway across the globe.

California this time of year is dry and hot enough that the county issues weekly warnings regarding the threat of wildfire. The last time they’d driven in from the airport, Zack had pointed out an orange flame eating at yellowed grass to starboard.

Australia is the land of bush fire, the place of ever baking unforgiving sunlight. But for them it's not that time of year. The season is cold, and the air must bite.

It can’t be night for them, but she imagines him in bed, large, scar-scattered hands fisting uncomfortably at his covers like she was with her own, but where she tosses and turns from the dry heat sinking around her in sweltering waves - their warehouse is too large and too expensive to properly ventilate - he’s restless because the air pricks like ice and it's winter there and no amount of blankets piled on are ever enough.

Carmen was an island girl first and foremost, a child of the tropics, and she can handle her heat much better than she can her cold. She wonders if he’s the same. She wonders so many things about him that it's hard to keep track. If he’s eating. How work was going. Whether he had any friends and family to go home to at the end of each day. (he must’ve, right? He had to. He was Gray; he could make friends with anyone.)

How he was sleeping. Who he’s sleeping with.

That last thought strikes something uncomfortable that she doesn’t yet want to touch. Carmen shifts in her bed, arms suffocating the long pillow she sleeps with but doesn’t lie her head on.

This is nothing new, a sleepless night filled with her ghosts. He was as much one of them as Brunt or Shadowsan were. Maybe more, given how he consumed her these days.

Lately she thinks of him so often it hurts, the friend she used to have until he’d betrayed her - until she left him. Until he came back, a second chance in the flesh, and she’d still high-tailed it and ran away. Because she needed him safe. Because she was scared.

He’s an entire ocean away from her, miles and miles and miles, but there he lies, so close to her heart. Maybe because the truth is glaring at her; if she wanted, she could just go get him.

The urge is there and it remains steadily potent in spite of their past. In spite of the fact that the last time he was completely himself, he tried to kill her.

He never would’ve ended her life moving, fighting, breathing the way he had that night, and she wonders if he was aware of that as it was all happening. A half-hearted attempt, however, is an attempt nonetheless. And how can she ignore that?

Player chastises her about it regularly, whenever she mentions Gray or he senses where her distant mind is. Because they’ve been doing this for a long time and the two of them know each other inside out. He can as much feel the mournful heartbreak of maybe that she tries to keep tightly bridled as he can sense her next string of words in any given conversation, because he knows her that well.

It was courtesy of Player that she found him that second time. It was because of Player she had his number, and because she had his number, she was left to sit with herself, fighting the desire to do something that anyone can tell her will only end badly.

Carmen called up Gray last time for business. Now, said business was done. Yet she could still feel the knowledge of his number, of the access to him, burning a figurative hole in her pocket.

He’s right there, an instant message away, yet Carmen doesn’t text him. She doesn’t text him.

But slow, over the course of weeks jetting across the world, her conviction to do right by the both of them is withered. Carmen is selfish. Carmen is just a girl.

She calls him, hoping he doesn’t answer. Praying that he does.

The dial clicks when it's picked up. “Hello?”

For a moment she can’t speak; can hardly breathe. He repeats himself, adds on “is someone there?”

She opens her mouth before she can think better of it. “Hi, Gray.”

“It’s Grah-” He starts to venture, cutting himself off when the realization strikes him. “Carmen?!”

“In the flesh.” She tries to joke. It comes out smoother than she feels. The sound of something loud carries over the line, the chorus of voices like you’d hear in a restaurant or bar. “Are you busy?”

“No,” Gray says, and she can hear him begin to walk. A door jingles and the world wherever he is seems to mute. “I - uh, I thought I’d never hear from you again.”

“I know.” Carmen bites her lip. “I’m sorry for leaving like that.”

He huffs a laugh. “You certainly know how to leave a guy wanting more.”

Something flutters in her chest and she smothers it with a chuckle. She’s still thinking over what to say, how to tonally proceed, when he speaks again.

“Uhm, Carmen, I- I never got to thank you for the check. I can’t express how much it means, it-”

“C’mon. That's not why I called. It was deserved for all the trouble I put you through.”

His half-hearted chuckle spills from the receiver, and she can picture the small way his lips quirk for such a gesture clear as day, even all these years later. “No trouble at all, mate. It's not everyday you get to assist in international espionage.”

The side of her mouth kicks up. “You’re still on the spy thing?”

“Don’t recall you denying it.”

“Or confirming.”

“Tch, Yeah, sure.” Gray had the kind of voice that let you hear his smile as much as you got to see it. She can’t see him now, obviously, but she thinks, maybe foolishly, that she can hear it in his voice. The thought makes her feel warm.

Gray keeps talking. “On that matter then, why did you call? Is there a matter of international espionage you need my help with?”

For a moment, she’s silent, reveling in the irony of it all. “Eager to play hero?” Carmen says finally, amused by his fixation.

“It was fun last time, in spite of almost dying from a hang-gliding accident.”

“We were not going to die. I’m an expert Hang-glider.”

“Do you usually expertly hang-glide to the forest floor?”

“No, but I usually don’t have a tagalong.” She retorts. “Can’t say it wasn’t fun, though. It was cute how scared you were.”

“...I’ve got no clue what you’re referring to.”

“I’m serious, Calloway.” She teases. “You make a great damsel.”

“I’ll be sure to call you the next time I’m in distress,” He deadpans.

“Guess I can add knight in shining armor to my resume, then.” Carmen says, and her voice comes out fonder than she means for it to.

“I should count myself lucky.” Gray chuckles again, and it's heartier this time. “So, if not international espionage…”

“I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh.” He says, sounding genuinely surprised. “Well, I - I’m good! Work’s been a snore, as usual. What can I say? It pays the bills.”

“Oh, c’mon. It can’t be that bad.”

“It isn’t.” Another smile’s in his voice - this one’s more rueful. “It’s just hard to compare the excitement of flipping switches or examining wiring all day to - “ He pauses, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Assisting a secret agent!”

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”

“Sorry, love, but meeting you is officially the coolest thing to have ever happened to me. I am going to be insufferable about this for all of time.”

“You let one decent looking guy in on your charade, and he loses his mind,” Carmen huffs. She keeps her voice casual but the throw away line (particularly the decent looking part) is anything but. Like a toe dipped into the water or a finger thrumming a tight rope, it’s a test.

“Decent-Looking? You flatterer.”

“Don’t get big-headed about it.”

“Way too late for that.”

“Figures.” She makes a point to scoff, but she’s smiling.

Gray laughs. “What about you? How is the secret agent lady doing today? Or..tonight, actually, what time is it…wherever you are?”

“4:14 am.”

“Jesus! Sleep and relaxation not your thing?”

“Wish it was, but yeah, I guess you could say it's not my thing. Or, it's like - “ She rolls over, pressing her phone close to her ear as she struggles to explain herself. “I would love to sleep more, when I can. I like sleep. It's just…sleep doesn’t like me. Does that make sense?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“You relate?”

“Yeah, I - ever since the accident, I’ve been getting these migraines? Makes it hard to doze sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, that sucks.”

“What can you do, you know?” He says, chuckling, but it's a little dry. “So, uh, what is it, exactly, that's kept you from sleeping tonight?”

You, she almost says.

“It’s…work.” is what comes oy instead.

“Ah,” He tuts knowingly, like he knows. He doesn’t know. “Suppose a lifestyle of taking names and kicking ass would not be all sunshine and roses.”

She lets out an amused sound. “Can’t be escaped, unfortunately. My work is my life, and it's tough. But I like it that way. I need…“

“Something to keep yourself occupied?”

“Yeah.” Carmen says, a bit surprised. “Kind of. It’s just, there’s so much…wrong in this world, Gray. If at any given moment I feel like I’m not doing everything I can to stop it, I feel guilty.”

“C’mon.” Gray says softly. “I’m sure you do loads. One person can’t save the world.”

A sad smile crosses her lips and she wonders vaguely if he can hear it in her voice. “I have to try.”

“That's really admirable.” He replies steadily. “The world owes itself to people like you.”

“That…means a lot to me.”

“Happy to be of service.”

Carmen smiles to herself. “Who knew damsels were so wise?”

“Well of course.” He chortles. “ What else are we meant to do but ponder whilst locked away in towers, waiting for our hero to slay the dragon?”

“Touche.”

She hears someone call his name over the line - his real name. Gray answers and says something she can’t make out.

“I hate to cut this short, love, but my coworker’s making a mess of himself at the bar and I ought to get him home.”

“Already that drunk at 9 pm? Some coworker.”

“How did you-”

“I know my timezones.” She supplies, pit for pat.

No words are said for a half beat, and then he laughs, not for the first time but more unrestrained than before. “You’re a riot, Carmen. Next time you’re in the country, give me a call, yeah? I’ll take you to dinner. Consider it a miniscule courtesy for all your services saving the world.”

The offer makes her heartbeat just a tad faster. It's so casual, and yet,..“That’s awfully faithful of you, Gray.” She drawls, electing to banter to try and maintain a light-hearted veneer to their interactions.

But instead of following suit, all he says is a simple: “I trust you.”

Something squeezes in her chest, and she then does something quite stupid. “I’ll be in Australia in August for business.” Lie. “ If, maybe…”

“It’s a date.” He says, and apparently that settles it. “Don’t go sneaking off this time.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Good night, Gray.”

There’s a half pause, a barely inhaled breath like he’s weighing on saying something (Maybe weighing over correcting her on his name or not) before he seems to think better of it.

“Good night, Carmen.” He whispers. “Get some rest. You deserve it.”

She ends the call and thinks about how heartbreakingly soft his voice had sounded when he’d bid her farewell. In spite of her state of exhaustion, Carmen feels alive; she feels excited. It’s lonely now to stare into the darkness without his voice in her ear, but her heart feels full—-fuller than it has in a long, long while.

_______________________

August comes, and in the meantime, they’ve foiled three major VILE heists. That big, scary goal they’ve tucked off at the end of the line (thwart that pesky old evil organization!) actually felt like it was being chipped away at. Shadowsan’s nearly folded himself completely into the rhythm of their team-unit, carving a space for himself so concave, so well-worn, that it was hard to believe he hadn’t been there from the start. Zack and Ivy were their usual selves and were even improving, if she could say so herself, at field work. Player was a gem as always. Life was moseying on at the pace it was supposed to.

And Carmen? Carmen’s mind was elsewhere, worlds away. Well. An ocean away, stuck in a city far south inhabited by someone that should’ve, by all means, remained a figment of her past.

The calls become a semi-regular thing. She had to call him again that second time, and they spoke for hours on another of her sleepless nights. The third time, he took the initiative himself, and, much to her delight, he finally stopped protesting her usage of ‘Gray’ over Graham.

“You seem too bloody attached to calling me Gray, anyway. Might as well get on board with it.”

She had smiled to the air at that. “Well I’m honored to have swayed you.”

“Why Gray, though?”

“I’m a nick-naming type. But also, I think it suits you so much better than Graham.”

“Yeah?” He laughs. “Why’s that?”

“Graham’s kind of an old man name, don’t you think?”

“Hey, I was named after my grandfather, you know! Okay…I can sort of see how this is proving your point.”

Carmen laughs. “Yeah. And I like Gray. It's…charming.”

“Charming.” He echoes. “Like some cute shit you might find at a thrift store.”

“Excuse you. I like finding cute shit at thrift stores.”

“I suppose you would.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?” She banters back with mock-offense.

“I mean your whole fedora and coat garb, darling. It’s straight out of some sixties fashion spread. But you wear it well, trust me.”

“Do I?” Carmen lets her voice turn coy. “Tell me more about what I wear well.”

He laughs, and yeah. He tells her. She pretends not to enjoy it.

The fifth call - she misses because she is busy in Algeria. There’s a sixth that lasts only for a few minutes but it's enough - if only because she gets to hear the sound of his voice again, and then, suddenly, it's August.

They were in Sri Lanka after a job. Shadowsan was off on a solo mission, so it was just her and the siblings. The caper was finished, but there was still work to be done in the manner of returning the slew of artifacts they’d stolen back from the VILE compound to their rightful owners. Zack was complaining about some impending monsoon around Colombo and how they had to get Red Eye up and running now if they didn’t want to be grounded at the airport for the foreseeable future. Carmen gave him the go ahead to get things in order.

“Should we stick around for ya, Carm?”

“I’ll catch a flight.”

The artifacts make quick work, quicker than she’d configured to herself. Or maybe, subconsciously, what she’d been creating for herself was an opportunity. An opportunity to slip away.

She buys the ticket. It’s not bound for California.

_______________________

The flight to Sydney is a solid 10 hour trip. It leaves Colombo at 9 sharp in the morning. In spite of local warnings and Zack’s own concerns, no monsoon had sprouted overnight to divert air traffic.

Carmen kills two hours on an old romcom (her newfound, secret guilty pleasure) and then spends the rest of the journey fast asleep. She’d adapted quickly to her jet setting lifestyle, learning to sleep sitting up and in the air, to catch it quick whenever she could. It was only when she was in her own bed, when sleep was suddenly a luxury instead of a necessity, that it would evade her.

She navigates the Sydney terminal with ease because she’s been here before. Twice actually. Distantly, stupidly, she wonders if there will be a fourth.

Carmen’s fingers itch with the urge to call Gray immediately now that she's in Australia, but common sense implores in her that he’s probably at work. She makes herself wait, til-

5:30 on the dot, she lets the phone ring.

“If it isn’t my favorite red sneakaroo.” Comes his voice, familiar and warm.

“Your favorite? You’re telling me you have others?” Carmen teases. “And here I was, thinking I was special.”

“Hate for you to find out this way, mate.”

“I’ll remember this.”

His voice turns low, teasing. “I wager you’re the type not to let a guy get away with a thing.”

“You’re right on the money. Are you off work yet?”

“Nah, but I will be soon,” He says, and the words come out a little slower like something’s got him distracted. “Just working on tuning up the grid wiring on one of the stages.”

“Really? I didn’t know lighting techs repaired the physical wiring too.”

“You’re sharp, aren’t you?” He chuckles. “I got a promotion.”

Carmen chews her lower lip. “Sounds like a cause for a celebration.”

“Maybe.” Gray muses. “Perhaps I’ll join the boys out for a bar crawl later tonight. No fun like getting wasted to the point I’m questioning all my life choices.” And you’ve made some questionable ones.

“Or,” She starts, semi-nervous but not to the point where it shows. “You could celebrate with me.”

“With you? But how - ! You’re in Sydney?”

“Surprise.”

“But you said you weren’t planning on coming down til the end of the month!”

“There was a last minute change,” She hastily explains. A seed of doubt roots within her. “If you can’t see me, I understand.”

“No, of course I want to see you, Carmen.” Gray says quickly, and as quickly as it’s planted, the seed is stamped out.

“I’d like that.” Carmen says softly. “I’ll be in tonight all night.”

“Just the night?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Yeah, please. I’d love to see you. Is there anything in particular you want to do?”

“It’s your city.” She waves a hand in the air, although he clearly can’t see it.

He huffs a laugh. “I’d take you to some nice restaurant but I doubt we’d get a reservation with such short notice.”

“It doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy. Take me to some local hidden gem. A Gray Calloway favorite.”

A pause. “You like Chinese?”

_______________________

The hubbub of downtown Sydney circumnavigates around Carmen as she stands still, waiting at the bus stop. The air bites like she had an inkling it would and brought a hoodie for. It helps, but her bare legs are still exposed to the elements because, for some alien reason, Carmen had elected to wear a dress.

It's not that Carmen doesn’t like dresses. In fact, she loves them. But she doesn’t make a habit of wearing them if they aren’t specified for the occasion. They weren’t exactly the most convenient sort of outfit, and the ability to start running at a moment's notice mattered in her line of work.

But she’d worn one today. Because she’s meeting somebody. Somebody that kind of means a lot to her.

It wasn’t anything crazy - black and silky and short enough that it showed off her toned legs. The straps were low on the shoulder, a facet that she’d found cute on the mannequin but was pissing her off considerably in the moment, what with the way they refused to just stay put. She’d worn the dress with flats and her daily jewelry. Her makeup was the same, but if she’d spent a little longer than normal perfecting her cat-eye in the hotel bathroom, well, that wasn’t anybody’s business but her own.

Gray doesn’t make her wait long. They’d texted and agreed that they’d meet at the bus stop where she was now.

Carmen spots his hair first, the tangle of brown that the wind treats well, tousling into a mess somehow even more appealing than it already was before. She catches his face - familiar to her like the back of her hand - and the sunlight exudes in sharp relief along its peripheries. Then comes the shoulders shifting between the sway of others - outfitted in the familiar denim of that jacket he’d worn to their last two inexplicable meetings. Underneath it, he’s layered a white collared shirt with one more button undone than what was probably socially acceptable. Gray raises a hand when he spots her, and even from afar she can make out the bloom of his wide smile. Carmen waves back, biting down on her glossed lip.

It’s only been a few months since she’d seen him in person, but her breath still catches when he gets close enough.

“Hey.” He says. His eyes remain trained on her face and there’s something a little wild in them, like he’s in disbelief he’s actually seeing her in person.

“Hi.” Carmen has to fight the urge to smile too wide. She gestures to the plane of his chest with her index. “You clean up pretty nice, Calloway.”

“Do I?” He smirks, and then looks her up and down appreciatively. “You’re not looking too bad yourself.”

Carmen bites down a grin.

He gestures a hand forward. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” She answers, and they’re off.

Chapter Text

The shift between Sydney evening to night is gradual, transpiring in hues of pink and orange to a washed out blue.

Gray leads her by the rows of kitschy shopfronts designed to draw tourists in like moths to a flame. They shuffle side-by-side, not exactly mirroring each other’s movements but, somehow, in step in an off-beat sort of way.

What is she doing? Carmen’s not entirely sure, but what she knows is that she needs to see whatever this is through. If only for the sake of laying old ghosts and drive-you-mad questions like what-could-have-been to rest.

“No red tonight?” Gray breaks the brief silence, observing her as they walk.

It takes her a moment to realize he’s referring to the color of her dress. “Disappointed?”

“Nah. Just thought you had a brand.”

“A girl has to switch it up every now and then.”

”Fair enough.” He concedes, half a smile armed at the ready. 

The light from the street lamp catches on the sharp indents of his profile. Carmen has to make herself look away, keep her voice light.

“So, is the place we’re going nearby?”

Gray looks at her, half-aghast. “Near THIS tourist trap hellscape?!” 

Carmen glances around, finding a plethora of flashy but interesting looks shops and restaurants. “Looks normal enough to me.”

“Who's the local here?” He grins, leading her up a side street with all the confidence of someone who'd walked it a hundred times. “These places are all overpriced transplants. Far from *real* Sydney best of the best. If you must know, we’re going to this place I used to go nuts over in high school. Total hole in the wall.”

“Oh yeah?” She prompts, trying to remain casual about the rare allusion to his past. "Tell me more."

It wasn't that Gray was hiding it, but in his eyes, they'd barely only just met, so, naturally, he wasn't spilling his guts or his life story to her. But she already knew a few things, and that complicated things. She has to catch herself often from starting sentences with "Remember when-" because by god, she's tried hard over the years to forget, but she remembers. She remembers him, them, the island. She remembers everything. 

But he was more than the island. He was more than her friend. In all honesty, Carmen's knowledge of his prior life was bareboned, skeletal. Every new detail he passed her offhand served to flesh it out, and she treasured them for the very same reason. 

“They’ve got the best dim sum this side of Australia, trust me!”

“Little early for that, Calloway." 

“Is that doubt I hear, Sandiego?” 

“You’ve still got all night to prove me wrong.” She winks, and he trades her a grin for it. Mind still half caught in the gaps of history, she clears her throat, adding a little awkwardly: “So, you’re from around here then? Sydney?”

Carmen knows the answer. But he doesn’t know she knows.

"What, the accent didn't give it away?"  He nudges her with his shoulder

"i meant if this was the city you grew up in." She socks the very same shoulder. 

“Yeah-yeah." Gray smirks, hands dipping into his pockets. “I guess, sort of. Not really. I was born in a town a couple hours off. Ran to the city first chance I got in the grand young adult cliche. What about you? Where are you from?”

Carmen bites her lip. “Buenos Aires.”

“Wow, Argentina!" He says, not missing a beat. "Long ways.”

“No kidding.”

“But,” he adds, still walking. By this point they’ve left the boardwalks and neon districts behind, ducking onto a quieter avenue. “You have an American accent?”

“I went to an international school.” She explains. “And my job kind of stressed the importance of learning English.”

It's her usual lie. Using it on him makes her nervous.

But Gray accepts her answer very quickly. “Ah. Makes sense. But an American accent? Out of all your options?”

“I-” Carmen opens her mouth, casting a sideways glance at him in surprise.

“I mean..” He trails off. “You had *so* many better alternatives.”

“Like Australian?”

“Well, since you mention it.” He grins, flashing his dimples. 

She rolls her eyes, but there’s no mistaking the smile tugging at her lips.

_______________

Gray finally slows them to a stop in front of a small, mom-and-pop style building slotted between two residential high rises. They can’t see inside, as most of the windowspace has been occupied by a slew of posters adverting more businesses, most in cantonese or mandarin, but in spite of its unassuming exterior, the trickle of customers is steady and promising.

He opens the door first, and immediately, they are hit with a warm draft of steam. Inside, the decor is sparse apart from an excess in enough fake plants to fill an oasis. Carmen has to fight an eye roll at the plastic panda situated by the front desk. 

“Hi!” The hostess perks up. “Welcome to Pearl Canteen.”

“Hi.” Carmen greets with a wave.

“Hey there.” Gray says, smile already on hand. His eyes dart down to the thick textbook she’s in the process of dog earring. “Is that Wagner’s Foundational Quantum Mechanics?”

“Yes." She pauses, and something flickers in her like she's snapping free of a mechanical process. "You know it?”

“Like the back of my hand. First textbook I ever had the pleasure of purchasing.”

“Are you a student?”

“I was. When I went to Sydney University.” Sydney University?

Carmen eyes him, curious. That was the first she'd heard of it. Maybe there was more about Gray she didn't know than she thought.

“I go there, too.” The skepticism in the Hostess's eyes is replaced with an inkling of interest. “It’s my first semester.”

Gray whistles. “Wagner as a first year? You must be real smart.”

“I’d hope so.” The girl smiles, sitting a little straighter. “What’s the name on the reservation?”

“Well, making one may have slipped my mind.” Gray answers sheepishly. “Any chance you could help a guy out, squeeze the two of us in?”

“Uhm…” The girl’s face clouds with unsurety. “Well…I’m not really supposed to.”

“You’d be doing me a real solid.” His expression grows imploring in a way that, as Carmen herself has found, is hard to say no to.

The hostess's shoulders relax. "Alright, since we’ve been through the same ringer with Wagner. But next time, make sure to call ahead!”

“Will do. I appreciate it.” He says, fishing out a charming yet tactical smile.

Carmen gives him a sideways glance once they’ve been led to their seats - a little booth in the corner with a tablespace barely wide enough for two. “Smooth.” She declares simply.

Gray shoots her a wily grin. “You trying to imply something, Carm?”

“Is there something to imply?” She pokes him in the side. “Didn’t know you went to university.”

“I didn’t either, til five minutes ago.” His grin morphs into a smirk. “You’ve gotta admit, that was pretty slick.”

“Calm down, smooth criminal. I saw the alumni sticker, too. The textbook was a decent guess though.”

He laughs running a hand through his wavy hair. “Can’t take full credit for that part - I wasn’t lying about being familiar with it.”

“Oh?” She says, intrigued. “You read about quantum mechanics for fun?”

“I’m an electrician, love. Comes with the trade.” He shoots her a wry smile. “But, yeah. I guess you could say it's become a hobby."

"Interesting." She says.

Gray peers back at her with an expression like he's trying to figure her out. "I never quite know what to do when you look at me like that."

"Like what?" Her heart catches.

"Like...you're trying to remember something for later."

She forces a scoff to cover her embarassed cough. "Presumptive."

"En point." He fires back, leaning forward from his end of the booth.

"I guess I was just wondering if you enjoy the job and you enjoy reading up on it as a hobby, why not take it further?"

"How'd you mean?"

"Like go to university for real."

Now its his turn to cough and then look away. "I-um, I don't know. Uni's no easy feat in these parts."

"But you read this stuff for fun, Gray. You're definitely smart enough."

He smiles at that, and its more genuine than the showy ones he usually touts around to get what he wants. "Thank you. I guess..I never really thought of Uni as something that was for people like me." He pauses, and Carmen files the 'people like me' sentiment away for later rumination. "Sometimes, a hobby is just a hobby."

"True," The Thief says, thinking of her stack of history texts by her lampshade. In and out as she was, it was one of the few elements of her bedroom in San Diego she had thusfar managed to personalize.

"What about you?” He asks. 

“Me?”

“Your hobbies, when the fate of the world’s not in the way of course.”

When she cracks a grin, he mirrors it in a way that makes her feel warm inside. The fact that he was paying attention to her amusement, to whether she was enjoying herself, reminded her so sweetly of their old friendship that it almost hurt.

She forces the answer out, unwilling to let the ease between them stall in the water. “I like reading up on geography and history. Also anthropology, cultural evolution, and other things like that.”

He squints his eyes at her, nodding to himself. “Should’ve known you were a nerd.”

That gets her.

"I am not!”

“Hey, haven’t you heard? It’s cool to be a nerd these days.” Gray grins. “I can hardly judge either way.”

“Yeah, you can’t.” She snorts. “Mr.-I-Study-Quantum-Mechanics for entertainment.”

“STEM and humanities.” He nudges her foot from under the table. “What a pair we make.”

Carmen has little to argue with that. 

A waitress circles around to take their drink orders and menus. Between long, drawn out sips of his iced tea, Gray points out his recommendations. Carmen orders Har Gow and Rice that reminds her of the stint she’d spent in Hong Kong. She doesn’t expect much; she’s learned not to in general with foreign twists on asian food. But when the order comes out and the smell wafts her way, she finds herself pleasantly surprised.

Gray chuckles, watching her reaction intently. "There's the face I was waiting for." 

“What face?”

“The face of someone who dared to doubt me and got proven wrong!”

“Hold it." She says, raising a palm. "I haven’t even taken a bite.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

Carmen squints at him skeptically and spears the first dumpling with her chopstick, tentatively bringing it up to her mouth.

“Well?”

She takes the bite. The thin skin of the dumpling bursts, and the thief is immediately confronted with a rich amalgamation of flavors. After weeks of living off travel-made food for the go, a hot, sit down appetizer is mind-numbingly good. Carmen chews slowly, taking her time to answer. 

“I suppose…it's not terribly off-putting.”

"What a way with words you have." Gray snorts.

“Okay, fine.” She sighs, holding her hand up over her mouth to speak between chews.” It’s pretty good.”

He fishes another grin out for her, and she finds herself wondering, as she often used to, if he ever gets tired of smiling so often. She tends to be more reserved with her own expressions, but he has a way of drawing a certain kind of reaction out of her, something young and unexacted. It’s always been like that, but back then, she’d been too young and naive to consider what that truly meant for their relationship and what he would come to mean to her, even when he wasn't around. 

“Never judge a book by its cover.” He winks smoothly, and Carmen has to swallow more than just her next bite of food.

She smiles into her palm. “Or a Chinese restaurant by its corny decorations?”

“Precisely. Now you’re speaking my language.”

Carmen blinks at him, swallows again, and parts her lips to speak. “你应该试着说我的话.”

Gray’s mouth falls open. “Show off!”

A passing waiter’s head turns at the sound of the familiar language - brows raising in surprise when taking in her distinctly non-chinese face. Carmen only smirks.

“You’re not the only multi-lingual here. I’ll have you know I took German for a whole year in secondary school.”

“Oh really?” She says, squinting at him. Gray once had held a rudimentary understanding in a couple languages, as all VILE operatives had been required to. German had not been one of them. “Care to show off your skills?”

“Nein.” He crosses his arms. 

“That's what I thought.” She snorts.

“Keep your assumptions to yourself. I simply don’t want to astound you with my wide bastion of knowledge.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah. I totally believe you.”

“Is that sarcasm I detect?”

“Me? Sarcastic? Never.”

“Right.” He snorts, eyes bright.

Carmen knows implicitly that hers are the same. 

_______________

They talk about everything under the sun, and Carmen's surprised by the ease of it. The normalcy. 

“So...What kind of music are you into?”

“I don’t know…whatever sounds good? Haven’t had the time to really think about specifics. My best friend sort of keeps me up to date on the new stuff.”

“Care to share?”

She names a few names, and Gray raises a brow. “I’ve never heard of any of those.” He looks up one of the names and plays it at a volume just barely loud enough to border on impolite. “What the - is this dubstep?”

Carmen shrugs, and he clicks it off, shaking his head. 

Her companion’s mouth curves. “Your best friend. He’s a dubstep fan?”

“I guess?”

“This is like roblox music. What is he - twelve?”

“No!” She blurts quickly. “I’m more of a classics person. Boring stuff.”

“Right there with you. Consequence of the job, but I’m kind of into opera now.”

“Only kind of?”

“Okay, I like it a lot.” He admits sheepishly.

“Yeah, there you go. Next time before you make fun of dub the step or whatever, remember that you like old man music.”

“Old man music.” He mutters. “The disrespect…” But he doesn’t contest it, and suddenly, it feels like they're 16 going on 17 and freshly 19 all over again and nothing has changed. Only, just about everything has. 

_______________

A waitress swings by once more to check on them, asking if they need anything. Carmen answers in tandem and Gray cracks a joke, drawing out a smile and a seed of banter from the woman before she drifts away to complete her rounds.

Carmen watches the interaction unfold with interest, feeling the tug of memories beneath the surface.

“You must have a lot of friends.” She observes carefully. 

A brow shoots up in time with one corner of his lips. “Maybe. What makes you say that?”

She waves a hand, trying to find an eloquent way to describe it. “You’re just so….”

“So..?”

“Friendly.”

“Friendly?” He snorts, clearly having not expected that answer. “Oh, yeah. You got me. Take me to jail, officer.”

“Oh, c’mon.” She swats his arm. “It’s not a bad thing. I guess I was trying to ask - what are your friends like?”

“Well.” He starts, picking at the bare remainders of his plate. “There’s Ronnie. He’s in the stage crew and is always down for a drink. Jim, he’s older, but he’s always a good gab. Patricia’s pretty cool. Taylor and I get along well when he’s not being a jackass and does his job right.”

“These are…all people you work with?”

“Uh - yeah. Guess so.”

Carmen nods, accepting the answer, but she doesn’t say anything yet. Just thinks about it.

“I told you about my accident, didn’t I?”

Her eyes flicker. She hopes he doesn’t catch it.

“Mhm.”

“Right, so…” A hand runs through his waves. He looks off to the side. “Whatever I was doing during those years I lost, I wasn’t on anyone’s radar. I…fell out with pretty much everybody I used to know. And between all the overtime, in a city fast as this, an opportunity for making new non-work friends has yet to present itself.”

“I’m sorry.” She says softly.

Gray shrugs like ‘what can you do?,’ but she thinks, though it may be a trick of the light, that his eyes have a stitch of sadness in them.

“I can’t really judge you. All my friends are people I work with as well.”

“The brother and sister, right? You mentioned them a few times.”

“Among a few others, yeah.”

“More spies?” Gray asks, rueful, seemingly glad to turn away from the previous angle of their conversation.

“Something like that.” Her lips quirk at the thought of how Zack and Ivy would react to being considered akin to agents of espionage. 

“A spy friend-group.” He leans forward, grinning rakishly and depositing his chin on one knuckle. “That’s straight out of a damn TV Show.”

Carmen smirks enigmatically.

“Alright, alright. Keep your secrets.”

“Okay, fine. Yeah, the brother and sister are two of them. There’s also my, um, mentor.” She glances away upon alluding to Shadowsan. Carmen has yet to bring him up around Gray since reconnecting, and she’s not entirely sure why she’s doing it right now, even put this vaguely. “He’s this sour old guy, but I’m glad I have him around.”

“Those are the best.” He smiles at her clarification, eyes remaining free of any hints of recognition.

“And..there’s my best friend.”

“The dubstep best friend?”

“Yes.”

Her companion snorts subsequently.

“Watch it.” Carmen waves a fork at him. “That kid means the world to me.”

“Touche.” Gray puts his hands up, grinning wide. “I’ll keep the insults to a minimum.”

“See that you do.”

“So, Coworker friend-groups….”

“Never would’ve guessed we’d have that in common.” .

“From the way you talk about yours, you make it seem like they’re almost…”

“Family?”

“Yeah.”

Carmen’s mouth falls slightly open at hearing the sentiment voiced aloud by someone completely removed from the situation. The more she sat with the thought, the more Carmen realized that, maybe, it was true. Team Red had become like a family to her, and in her blinded mission to take down VILE and search for her mother, she hadn’t really stopped to think about that.

“I guess they are.” She admits, smiling fondly in recollection of her crew.

“That sounds really nice.” Gray says, voice soft. But when she looks up, she catches a glance of that streak of something in his eyes again. That sadness.

And in spite of all he’s done, she really can’t stand seeing that. It’s for this reason that without thinking, she hastily whispers: “There was someone else, once.”

As soon as the words leave her lips, Carmen inhales sharply. Gray glances up, curious. “Yeah?”

“...Yeah.” She adds eventually, biting her lip. “An old friend…from….high school.”

Gray’s lips quirk. “Those are the worst.”

“Tell me about it.” She snorts and then glances away, palms rubbing at her forearms. Why in the world had she even brought it up? She was tempting fate here. “There was a group of us, actually. We were in all the same classes and spent all our free time together causing mayhem.”

“As one does.”

“Speaking from experience?” Carmen tries to keep her tone light, but it masks her alarm that maybe he knows.

“Uh, well…Way back in Year 12 I had this gang of kids I’d pull stupid shit with-” Oh. Her shoulders relax. “-We were all a bunch of idiots who thought way too highly of ourselves, and yeah. Lost contact, but I wish em well."

“The universal teenager experience.” She notes, and they both laugh, as if they aren’t just a few years removed - in her case, barely 2, from the terrible teens themselves.

“So, what’s the story with your group?”

“Well, with hindsight, I’d say we were more friends from proximity than anything else. But there was one person. He was my closest friend at the time, and I thought…I don’t know. It was a long time ago.” Her breath hitches halfway through her words. She hopes Gray doesn’t catch it, but from his pause, she has a suspicion that he does.

“What happened?”

“We disagreed over something really important. I thought I could reach out to him, get him to meet me halfway, but he wouldn’t hear it. And he - “ Betrayed me. The rest of what she was about to say sits on the edge of her tongue, but she can’t bring herself to voice it.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Gray begins. “He sounds like a real piece of work. I bet you’re better off.”

She tosses him a lazy grin, hopes it masks any sadness that may or may not still be underneath. “Yeah, he was. Cocky and arrogant and stubborn. And stupid.”

“What a tool.” Gray affirms, raising an unimpressed brow. Carmen gawks at him for a moment, struck by the absurdity of this situation. Then she bursts into laughter. His mouth parts in confusion, but she’s laughing so hard that it turns contagious, and, suddenly, he’s smiling, too.

“What’d I say? No, seriously…”

_______________

Gray puts his card down before she can even bother contending who will pay.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m perfectly capable of paying for my own food!”

“And I respect that! When you plan the date, you can spend whatever you like.”

Carmen’s brow raises instinctively, and she squints at him and all his audacity. It’s kind of hard to argue with.

“C’mon,” He says, with a cheeky grin that is entirely devious and fully self-aware. “Night’s still young.”

When he leads her out of the establishment, their hands are not in hand, but Carmen thinks they might be somewhere close to it.

_______________

As the evening wanes, Gray takes to playing tour guide around the particular borough of Sydney they’re in, regaling Carmen with a mix of historical facts and childhood anecdotes. Together, they scour the city, stopping by the tourist traps he deems worthwhile and then circling around to locale haunts that he makes her swear to keep to herself. The day crowd of families and corporate workers is steadily replaced with young people emerging for the night, and in their slightly nicer-than normal brand of casual clothing, Carmen and Gray blend right in. The place where they stop for a drink at (Carmen orders a lime soda) is playing a tune he likes, so Gray gets her to dance. One song turns into five, ten, and it's completely dark when they stumble back out, still laughing, shoulders knocking into one another.

He asks her things about herself with bold self assurance, and she tells him just enough to maintain her mystery. It’s half out of her innate desire to leave anyone she interacts with wanting more and half out of self preservation. Keeping herself elusive is how she’s kept herself safe all these years. Safe from emotional vulnerability, safe from getting hurt again.

But it feels strange, providing information that he should’ve already known about her. There are things he tells her like its the first time she's hearing of it that she has to stop herself from responding with “I know." 

Realistically, Carmen knows that keeping the truth from him is the smart thing; It protects him from VILE and it prevents the both of them from ending up on opposite sides again.

However, there is a part of her, a non small part, in fact, that is fine with keeping this secret for reasons that have little to do with safety and everything to do with the way Gray looks at her when he thinks she doesn’t notice–the curiosity in his eyes, the need to know her. The delicate promise of something that lies between them, that is sure as day to get stamped out fiercely should their relationship get properly recontextualized.

Being with him is easy, so easy, in fact, that she forgets, just for a moment, just for the night, that it is dangerous.

_______________

It’s late, later than she’d planned for.

They’re at the bus stop. It’s time for her to go.

This is the part where she should say something clever, share a careful smile, and then turn her heel. Disappear with her dignity and leave him wanting more. That’s the routine she’s gotten down to science.

But instead, she lingers. Eyes-too-bright, a smile that’s too genuine to be smooth, and her feet shuffling with anticipation. He’s a mirror of the same.

Gray’s the one who breaks the silence, taking a step forward and opening his arms. “C’mere.” He says. “We’re friends now, right?”

Friends. The word gives her pause…for obvious reasons.

For a moment, Carmen hesitates. But one look into the earnestness in his light brown eyes causes her to fold immediately.

The thief takes one step forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders. Gray returns the embrace, circling her waist, drawing her close with strong biceps that flex against the small of her back. He’s warm and solid and firm against her, smells like a heady mix of cologne and boy. He feels so good, wrapped around her like this. She wants to hang on tight; She doesn’t ever want to let go.

“We’d better be friends, after all those nights you kept me up.” Carmen teases when they part reluctantly. They don’t step very far from one another at all, and this close, she can make out the sight of Gray’s freshly shaved jaw. Shadows cast in the deep-set hollows underneath his eyes, and the distant lights of the neon city catch on the high point of his face, including the irregular bridge of his nose, healed not-quite-right after getting broken a time too many.

“Hey, as I recall, you were the one who called me!” Gray fires back with mock-offense.

“No idea what you’re talking about.” She says, transfixed on the way his dimples wink at her every time he even comes close to a smile.

His eyes glimmer. “Really? You’ve got no clue?”

“Nope, none at all.”

“No? I see how it is.” A fist is thrust against his heart in a dramatic gesture of mock offense. “You’re pretty cutthroat, Red.”

She laughs. “Red, huh?”

“For obvious reasons.”

“Maybe too obvious.”

“Why? Already in use?”

“Sort of.”

“Ah.” He says. “Back to the drawing board, then.”

“Red and Gray.” She muses. “It’s kind of poetic.”

“Don’t get all soft on me.”

“Never.”

He smirks, the gesture belied by the softness in his eyes. “Thank you for going out with me tonight.”

“Thanks for taking me out.” She smiles, pauses, and then: “And..thank you for all the company this past month. Our calls meant a lot to me.”

“I’m glad. They meant a lot to me, too. Can’t believe I’m friends with a secret agent now.”

“Don’t go spreading that around.”

“Oh, trust me. I plan on keeping you all to myself.” Gray winks. The gesture has her fighting a giddy smile.

On a whim, she opts to respond with something a little bold. “And now that you have me, what would you like to do with me?”

His head tips near-imperceptible closer, voice dropping half an octave. “Got a few ideas.”

“Yeah?” She smirks, lingering in place, letting him step closer.

Gray’s gaze flecks from her eyes to her lips. Carmen keeps her expression even, but her heartbeat skitters upward rapidly. Could it be? Were they really about to-

A rough, screeching sound interrupts just about anything that was transpiring on the street. Any spell Carmen and Gray might’ve been under shatters in time with the arrival of a brightly painted bus that halts itself at the stop.

“Jesus, that guy needs to get his brakes checked.” Gray mutters.

“No kidding. Oh.” She tacks on when she spies the number printed across the front and recognizes it. “I think that’s me.”

“Is it?” He says, voice hesitant with half-masked disappointment.

“Yeah.” Carmen affirms. “Guess we should say goodnight then, huh?”

“Probably.” His jaw works, but his eyes don’t tear from hers.

She steals a hug from him once more. This embrace is quick and strong and just for herself. When Carmen pulls away, his eyes are still painfully alive. “Goodnight, Gray.” She adds, lashes a little lower than they had to be, the corner of her red lips tugging into the lightest of smirks.

To his credit, Gray doesn’t shy away from her display. He never seems to, and it's one of many things that exhilarates her about him.

“Good night, Carmen.” He looks at her like he doesn’t ever want to look away, reluctant, it would seem, to let her go.

It almost makes her want to stay.

He waits until she boards the bus, feet locked in a latent shuffle because it never seemed like he could really sit still. Not then. Not there. Not now. But he waits. He waits for her.

From the window, Carmen waves, and he returns it. A final exchange of smiles, and then the bus drags her away.

She’s used to dull exhaustion settling over her once she peels off from any extended social interaction, but instead Carmen feels abuzz with something - consumed, entirely, by thoughts of the day, and how she hadn’t wanted it to end. Thoughts of him and his carefree smile.

Something has begun that she can’t take back.

Chapter Text

Player’s onto her the moment she turns her cell back on. She hadn’t expected anything else; they hadn’t gone a day without speaking from the moment she escaped the isle. Today’s deviation was sure to arouse suspicion.

“Well, well, well.”

She snorts. “You sound like a movie villain.”

“Every day I regret teaching you pop culture references.”

“Said the homeschooler.”

“Low blow, Carmen.” He keeps a note of amusement in his voice for her sake, she thinks. But the use of her name - her actual, chosen name instead of the offhand he preferred - makes her wince. “Low blow.”

A beat of silence, and then: “So, wanna tell me where you are?”

“I’m.. at the airport.” She lies uselessly. “Had some business to take care of. I told the siblings to go on without me.”

“Cute. I’d have bought that seven hours ago.”

“Maybe I had a long layover.” Carmen protests, finding the hint of chastisement in his voice annoying.

“And that required going offline?”

“Maybe it did.”

“Carmen.”

“Player.”

“Carmen.” He repeats, voice coming out harder.

“Player.” She fires back, not one to give him an edge.

Before he can reply, a grey sedan slows to where she stands. The window rolls down, and a man pokes his head out. “Ride for Carmen?”

“That's me.” She says warily, throwing her duffle in the trunk and switching from bluetooth to her cell. It’s more incriminating to talk into an earring than a phone, believe it or not.

“Who was that?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“So, any preferences for the AC or Radio, or…” The driver trails off when he catches her alarmed expression in the rearview.

She can almost feel Player narrowing his eyes. “Was that an Australian accent?”

“No.” Carmen says unconvincingly to both.

A split second of silence, and then it seems to dawn on him.

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“O-kay.” Carmen mutters under her breath. “I won’t tell you.”

“Jesus Christ.” He groans. She can hear the sounds of him standing up and beginning to pace. “You went to see Crackle? Again?! I thought we put this guy behind us!”

An involuntary sigh escapes her lips. “I thought so, too.”

“Then why?”

“Because I missed him, okay?” She snaps. “I missed him, and…I don’t know, he’s really been there for me these past few weeks, and before he was Crackle, he was Gray, and-”

“Hold up. He’s been ‘there’ for you? How long has this been going on?”

“There’s nothing ‘going on’!! This is the first time I’ve been to Australia since the thing with Bellum!” She hisses instinctually. Then logic comes in and deflates the bite in her voice. “Except…”

“Except?”

“We’ve been…calling and texting for the past few weeks.”

“Few WEEKS?”

“Listen, I know it was stupid and impulsive and reckless and a thousand other adjectives I know you want to call me right now, but I couldn’t just…keep pretending he didn’t matter to me! Not when he was right there, and, for once, I didn’t want to think twice. That’s the reason I went offline. I couldn’t deal with my best friend making me actually think about what I was doing.”

“Dude.” He says, and he’s - consciously or unconsciously - softer in his delivery. “That’s what best friends are for.”

“I know,” Carmen whispers, pressing the low, buzzing heat of the phone against her neck. “I knew you would talk me out of it. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“So you recognize that this is an extremely dangerous and risky endeavor?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re doing it anyway?”

“Yes.”

Silence again. She holds her breath.

But Player doesn’t make her squirm for long. He sighs. “So, what’d you guys do?”

Carmen smiles. Surely, he’ll give her grief for this later, but for now?

He was letting it slide.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re kinda nosy?”

“You and I are way too codependent for secrets. Spill.”

“Okay, fine.” She chuckles. “It wasn’t anything crazy. He took me out to dinner.”

“Oh. Like..a date?”

“No. I mean, maybe? I don’t know. We got Chinese and then he showed me around the city. Nothing happened.”

“Creative.” He drawls.

“I was the one who suggested we go out to eat.”

“And he picked Chinese?”

“What’s wrong with Chinese?”

“It’s just so…basic!”

Carmen snorts. “Tell that to the 1.3 billion people living in China. You’re such a hater.”

“Yin and yang, Red. If you’re gonna blindingly lust after some memory-challenged electrician who uses too much hair gel, I’ve gotta take on the role of ‘devil on your shoulder.’ “

“He’s not some RANDOM memory challenged electrician, and I don’t do anything blindly. Also, who said anything about lust? Do you even know what that means?”

He scoffs. She can hear the rickety wheels of his mother’s old office chair as he spins in it. “Of course I know what it means! Do you?”

“I…know!” She scoffs back, and they’re at the familiar standoff of the equally unsocialized chronically online homeschooled kid vs ‘grew up as the only child on an island full of thieves’ social pariah. She still thinks she has the edge in this argument. He had the internet at his fingertips, after all.

“Yeah, clearly.”

Her nostrils flare at the insinuation. “Moving. On.”

“Ugh. Well, did you….” He pauses, and she nearly laughs at the effort it akes him to get the words out. “....have a good time?”

“Yeah,” Carmen admits, thinking of Gray, of his smile and his laugh and his hand so close to hers. She doesn’t notice the wistful fondness that creeps into her voice. “I did. I had…fun.”

“Oh, brother.”

“What?”

“i hAd FuN.” He mocks.

“Oh my god, this is the last time I’m telling you anything!”

“You’re going to see him again, aren’t you?”

“I…” Carmen bites off her own answer, not finding it in her to attempt a futile lie.

Player sighs loud enough for the cab driver to hear and shoot her a side-eye in the rearview.

“Stop sighing, dammit!”

“I will when you stop fraternizing with the enemy!”

“Gray is not the enemy!”

“Great, now he’s making you delusional.”

Carmen’s mouth flies open at the audacity. “I’m hanging up on you.”

“No wait!”

She hovers her thumb over the end call button with an unamused expression. “Well?”

“If you’re planning on continuing this…whatever this is… “

“Spit it out, Player.”

“ I just wanna make sure you’re being careful, OK?”

“OK?” She echoes, perplexed. “You know I'm always careful.”

“Not like that. I mean, with Graham….Just promise me you’ll be, um. Safe.The HQ does not have a spare room, and, frankly, team red does NOT need an extra member.”

“Huh?”

He sighs, and sounds too much like an old man for any self respecting 16 year old. “Just….Use protection!”

The realization slithers in slowly. Carmen's eyes blow up wide as saucers when it bites.

“Oh my GOD. PLAYER, WHAT THE HELL?!”

____________________

It’s the next night by the time she makes it back to San Diego. She’d planned on ubering, but a familiar redhead pacing at the terminal gate stops her short. 

Carmen opens her mouth to say something, but Ivy beats her to it, smile splitting her face and hand raising simultaneously. “Hi, stranger! What took you so long?”

“Hey, Ivy.” She tries to mirror her expression. “Long story.”

Zack’s outside with their ride. The bright red sportscar draws attention wherever they take it, which isn't exactly  a conducive thing for a gaggle of so-called super thieves; But Zack liked the drama of it, and Carmen liked the style, and that had been that.

“Hey, Carm!” He says, and instead of the wince she expects, her name comes out in his usual chirpy snap. 

“Hey, Z,” She says weakly, and the pressure of the lie-by-omission she’d already been planning expounds itself inside her chest. Her inner turmoil must show on her face because he gives her a look, but she supposes she gets away with it on account of the weariness that came from traveling. 

Zack navigates the car through the crowded airport carpool and then the highway with effortless precision, easily making conversation whilst weaving around zooming pickups and eighteen wheelers without dropping under 85.

It used to scare her at first, his reckless way of things. It took her a while to accept and trust that he was just that good.

Eager for a place to belong, Zack and Ivy had trusted her easily from the start. Loyal and without question, even when they had concerns of their own, they had followed her. Yet here she was, keeping just another thing from them.

“So, anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

“Not really.” Ivy says. “Unless you count thing 1 over here nearly burning down our kitchen trying to make pastrami.”

“Hey! I thought we agreed we weren’t gonna talk about that!”

“Oh, yeah. I lied.”

“Traitor.” Zack sneers. “Also, are you aware if I’m thing 1, that makes you thing 2?”

“Hell no. Player is thing 2.”

“Says who?” Player chirps into Carmen’s ear. Carmen chuckles and puts him on speaker.

“Says me. You two are the youngest ones on the team. Like little babies, basically.”

“That’s BS! Red, tell her its BS.”

“I’m staying out of this.” Carmen grins.

“La la la, talk to the hand, kid.” Ivy fires back.

“I’m on comms, not facetime.”

“Yap yap yap. I can’t hear you thing 2.”

“Okay,” He says, somber like he gets before he’s about to drop a truth bomb. “Guess I can move that red drone update down on the priority list.”

Ivy gasps. “Wait, no! I take it back!”

Player cackles. “Thats what I thought.”

“Look at him…holding his hacking abilities over our heads… like a true tyrant.”

“Its called the benefits of having a skill in monopoly. No, I'm not talking about the board game."

"I know what a damn monopoly is!

"Do you, really?"

"Yes!" Zack pouts, smoothly switching from the fast lane to the rightmost a hundred feet shy of the exit to San Diego. "But I thought you were a socialist or whatever." 

“Benevolent anarchist, but nice try.”

"As soon as I get home, I am attacking your new minecraft build."

"I'd like to see you try-"

“Seems like you guys are all getting along great.” Carmen cuts in, smiling thinly. The return to routine was like a sharp spike shattering whatever fantasy she’d just stepped out of, but her team’s antics were, as usual, the silver lining.

“Oh yeah.” Says Zack. “Team bonding goes crazy when your fearless leader is missing in action and your shadowy formerly reformed mentor is off on a solo mission.”

Carmen’s eyes flicker as she thinks of Shadowsan, off in Mongolia for a recon that hadn’t required personnel over one. She’d been so resistant to let him go off on his own at first, yet she knew if he’d been here, he’d have seen through her sketchy late arrival in a heartbeat.

“He wanted you there. Too bad you couldn’t join, Carm.”

“What? Hm, yeah, you know, the flight was delayed because of the weather, and…well, he’s proven he can be trusted by this point.” She mutters, distant.

She’s ready to retreat into the recesses of her thoughts, to let Player and the siblings’ chatter fade into the background, when she becomes painfully aware that said chatter is absent and save for the AC, the car has gone fully silent.

Carmen looks up, finding Ivy’s eyes on her and Zack’s, too, from the rearview.

“What?” She snaps.

“”The predictions were wrong. The Monsoon veered westward and didn’t hit Columbo.” Zack says.

Carmen frowns. “Ok?”

“That means no flights were delayed that night because of the weather." Ivy continues. "Which means you, Carmen Sandiego, just lied.”

____________________

They get home, and she has exactly two minutes two drop her shit off and wash her face before the siblings expect her back down for an explanation, which she’d managed to stave off so far.
She considers lying. She’s good enough to spin it.

But that won’t last, and the confrontation with Player was already annoying enough. She decides to rip off the bandaid early this time.

Of course, her team’s never been the types to let anyone off easy. And today, that includes her.

“You’re doing WHAT with WHO?”

Carmen massages the gap between her eyebrows. "Don't make it a thing.”

“Don’t make it a thing? Don’t make it a THING?” Ivy whisper-yells, eyes flicking back and forth from Carmen to the door. “You made it a thing when you turned it into…this!”

“I did not! It’s not a big deal!”

“Not a big deal? NOT A BIG DEAL?”

“Can you react without repeating what I said verbatim?”

“I’m sorry! I just can’t believe it!”

Carmen sighs. “Look, Ivy, Player’s already lectured me about my risk-assessment capabilities, and I don’t need a rehash. I know its a gamble, but-”

“Not that!” The redhead cuts her off, arms crossing over her chest sternly. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us!”

Carmen blinks.

Zack, who’d been hanging his head off the side of the couch and tossing a ball in the air rather disinterestedly, finally snaps to attention. “I believe it.”

Ivy glares at him. “So not helping, bro.”

“Look, all I’m saying is - we’re always the last to know about shit! Figures that HE would know before us!” He points an accusatory finger at the red laptop situated over their coffee table, where Player blinks back at him in pixels.

“For the record, I only found out because prying’s in my job description, Zack. And I’m not challenged by big-mouth affliction.” Player says coolly.

Zack’s jaw drops and his brows flatten in anger. The whole effect’s ruined by the knowledge of his anger being fleeting and flighty - and the fact that his head was hanging off the side of the couch. “You take that back you …you zoomer!”

“Zoomer?” Player barks, slightly aghast. “Least im not a carrot colored, sun-averse-”

“Boys.” Carmen interrupts.

“He started it.” Player says.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Can we focus? This is the last thing we should be arguing about.”

“Exactly. Thank you, Ivy.”

“We should be arguing about CARM keeping us OUT OF THE LOOP.”

“Oh my god!” The thief snaps, exasperated. “How many times do I gotta say sorry?”

“You didn’t, til then. Apology accepted.” Ivy smirks in a way that seems to say, ‘checkmate.’

“What..” Carmen shakes her head, trailing off in disbelief. “God, you guys are so weird.”

“You might forget from time to time, but we’re your friends. It’s in our job description to be weird. And to learn about any formerly villainous memory challenged electricians you may or may not be going out with.”

“There’s no may or may not,” Player supplies. “She definitely is.”

“Not. Helping.” She hisses.

Player just smirks, glad to have backup for his pile on for once. Carmen glares back at him for it.

It’s Zack who interrupts their brewing standoff.

“So, this was the reason you refused to talk about Crackle all those times we asked…” He reaches a hand out haphazardly for the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. Ivy moves it further out his reach. He half-heartedly attempts to kick her leg for it. “Because you had a crush on him!”

“That wasn’t- I didn’t-” She sputters.

He continues his spiel, oblivious. “And here I was thinking that it was because you were still totally devastated over being betrayed by a former friend and decided shutting down and shoving all those emotions inside was the best way to cope or something." 

Someone, probably Player, mutters something like ‘damn,’ but Carmen’s too preoccupied with her body going rigid to fully notice.

Ivy punches one of her brother’s legs. He starts to protest, but she widens her eyes meaningfully at him in an unsubtle signal to shut up.

“What? Too much?”

“Ya think?!”

“Oops,” Zack says, mildly apologetic. “My bad, Carm.”

The thief sighs, her anger deflating at once. “You’re not the last to know, Zack.” Her brows draw together, and she stares hard at the ground. “I still haven’t said anything to Shadowsan.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Thats no big deal, right? Shadowsan gets the whole reformed villain thing. Plus, he used to know Crackle.”

“Gray.” She stresses. “Was not someone he liked very much.”

“Couldn’t the same be said about you?”

“It’s just different. I can’t deal with him yet. I need more time. Can you do me a solid and keep it to yourself?”

Zack opens his mouth to argue, then closes it.

“I’ll try my damndest, Boss.” He says, glum and serious.

Carmen rolls her eyes.

____________________

Messages: Gray <3

Gray:

Made it home in one piece?

Carmen:

More like in a few pieces 

Gray:

Aw Red

miss me that bad already ? 

Carmen:

I will cause you great harm 

Gray:

Looking forward to it

what happened?

Carmen:

Just...team drama 

Gray:

want to talk about it?

Carmen: 

Yeah, are you free to call?

Gray: 

Sorry, C

my friend and his fiance are over and there's mad construction outside rn

Carmen: 

thats alright

Gray:

I can, however, fly across the ocean at moments notice and beat someone up. should you so desire. 

Carmen:

And they say chivalry is dead

Actually, the pressing issue is about whether or not they'll beat YOU up. lol

Gray:

Ah right

I take it spy friends arent too keen on me?

Carmen: 

Its complicated

They're just worried about me

Gray:

smart of them

i've been told im real mean and scary 

Carmen:

oh yeah

your friendly tendencies and excessive hair gel usage are absolutely terrifying

Gray:

they are NOT 

you take that back this isntant

Carmen:

naur

Gray:

...are you mocking my accent

Carmen:

maybe

Gray: 

i will get you for this

Carmen:

You can try ;)

Gray: 

yeah yeah rub your skills in my face 

listen i gotta bounce but i'll call you tomorrow

if thats okay

Carmen:

I'd like that.

Gray:

its a date ;) 

Night Carm

Carmen:

Good night, Gray.

____________________

It spirals, because of course it does. It turns into more than one text turned calls turned flights diverted to Australia instead of routing back to California when a job was done. It’s casual, she insists when pressed by Player and the others. But the lie’s wearing thin, even to herself.

One night after spending an evening out near the beaches - doing all the touristy things he claimed to hate - they end up at his apartment.

“This is my, uh, Castle,” Gray says, opening the door.

Carmen steps inside tentatively, unable to keep the curiosity off her face.

She’s been across the world, has become well acquainted with innumerable hotel rooms and has broken into living spaces on different stratospheres of grandeur. None have felt quite like being invited into the home of one of her oldest friends.

At first, she thinks his place is a studio until she notices a door leading off to another space. “My room,” he says, when he catches her looking. Gray’s eyes twinkle, and Carmen feels something flutter in her stomach. There’s an implication there. They wordlessly choose to leave it for later. On his account, it's probably due to the false provision of time. On hers, it's a heady mix of thrill and fear of what lies beyond that line.

Carmen drinks up the space, taking in his choice of interior design, his sparse furniture, and the signs of movement, of life, around - a potted plant, books and papers stacked centrifugal on the dining table. A denim jacket caped over a chair. A discarded clothing sticker left in one corner of the floor. He’s cleaned recently, but everything’s still a bit on the haphazard side. It reminds her of their academy days. He’d always been the one written up most for an unmade bed or messy personal space, and, being able to make that connection has her lips forming a grin. 

“Suits you,” She says finally, still pouring over minute details.

“Thanks,” He smiles like she’s said something a little odd. “I’m sure you’re used to much fancier.”

“Who says I’m fancy?”

“Carmen, please. I’m not blind.” He rolls his eyes good naturedly.

“For your information, I work out of a warehouse.”

“Right, I definitely believe you. How do you take your coffee?”

“Hot, extra cream, one sugar.”

“Roger that.”

The thief continues her inspection, cat on the prowl. Without meaning to, her mind is cataloging the space, noting possible escape routes. She’s suckered her way into people’s homes with less, ever beguiling with her list-long set of fake names and pretty smiles, always on the hunt for information or priceless jewels that she needed to steal first.

Gray lags behind in the kitchen area, calling out explanations for the little mementos she picks at (“seashell i collected from bondi,” “magnet from when i visited NZ,” "my old cat Persimmon's collar.") She reaches his bookshelf, hand trailing over worn spines with ominous titles (a sheepish laugh; “my spy novel collection.” She spares him a rueful glance for that.), when her hands land on one of the few hardback’s he’s got on hand. The book stands out for how thin and large it is surface area wise. It sits tucked between the much more normal sized copies of the house on the cliff and the lightning thief.

Curious, Carmen fishes it out.

Gray emerges from the kitchen, two steaming mugs in hand. Carmen thanks him and accepts the one he holds towards her, bringing it up to her nose and inhaling the warm, caffeinated aroma.

“What’ve you got there?” He asks, noticing what she’s found and then smiling with realization. “Aw, hell.”

“Can I look?”

“Yeah, knock yourself out.”

Carmen perches on his dark grey couch, eyes fixed on the book that feels - frustratingly important for some reason. Gray plops next to her in a heap whilst somehow his coffee barely sloshes in its cup. He reaches over, wiping the nonexistent layer of dust off the cover before opening the tome, and immediately, Carmen is met with an alien sight.

Inside are squares and squares of young people that draw Carmen’s eyes in a heartbeat. The names read off one after another. Lachlan Kratz, Matthew Badger, Norton Jang, Saifa Shirazi, Veronica Jenkins, Finn McCloud, Taryn Marley, James Laforteza… She spies acne and baby fat and braces and knows instantly these are teenagers. On one particular page, a yellow banner advertises the phrase “Class of 2015.”

He sets it on their laps, adjusting it so one page is on either of their legs. The act at least justifies how close they sit next to one another.

“What…is this?” Carmen asks, mystified, as she scans the sea of faces.

Gray raises a brow. “It’s my secondary school yearbook.”

“Right.” She retorts back with false confidence. She makes a mental note to ask Player what a yearbook is later, though a hasty idea is already forming in her mind.

It’s all but confirmed when Carmen’s eyes snag on a familiar face. Carmen lays her hand over his like she means to stop him from turning the page, even though they both know he wasn’t going to.

“It’s you!”

He suppresses a smile. “Yeah.”

Younger-Gray’s hair, which is a couple shades lighter than it is now, is shorn close to his scalp in a way that doesn’t suit him as well as when it's long. He’s fresh-faced and bright-eyed and still strong-boned yet, softer, age having not yet carved out his features in full relief. But the smile he wears - wide, dazzling, and dimpled - is the exact same. He looks just like he once did - save for the hair. Back when she knew him in a simpler way, when he was just her friend.

“You were so cute.” Carmen smiles, voice fond.

“Were?” Gray echoes back, eyes growing mischievous. “One moment she makes you feel special, and the next…”

“No, I mean- cause you were a kid- Gray!” She laughs, socking him in the shoulder.

“Can’t believe I have to fight my teen-self for your affection.” He thrusts a fist over his chest, falling to the back of the couch dramatically.

She presses her index flat to the page, right over baby-Gray’s face. “He’s got a great smile, don’t you think?”

Gray flashes a toothy smile at her to make a point. Carmen’s heart skips a tiny beat when he does it, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Nice try.” She says, tapping a finger on the tip of his nose. Then, she presses it back to the page. “He wins.”

“Oh, c’mon!”

She smirks at him devilishly and then glances back to the photo. “Hair’s a choice, though.”

“Right? Grew it out as soon as I got the chance.”

Carmen can relate. “Strict parents?” She asks, because it's the next natural line of questioning. Even though she already knows the bit of information he supplies her with next.

“Kind of. Strict foster parents. I’m an orphan.”

Carmen makes herself look at him. Unconsciously, she squeezes his hand where theirs are still interlaced. “I am, too.”

Gray’s eyes widen. “Really?”

She nods.

“Wow.” He huffs a laugh. “What are the odds?”

“Birds of a feather, or something…” Carmen smiles, but there’s a sadness to it.

Gray looks at her intently like he’s seeing her for the first time. The heat of her gaze makes her want to swallow. “Uh-” Carmen says, fixing her eyes back on the yearbook. “So, 2015, huh? Been a while.”

“Tell me about it,” He expresses with a smirk. “I was eighteen and convinced the world was going to fall at my feet. I was so stupid. Didn’t even realize what I had at the time.”

“Yeah?” Carmen says, giving his hand another squeeze. It is warm and larger than hers, but the way they fit together feels right.

Gray looks down at where their hands are locked, and then back at her. His face grows a bit more serious. “Yeah, I, uh- It’s about another half year after where the memories start…” He trails off, making some sort of gesture with his other palm. “Getting fuzzy.”

Carmen waits for him to elaborate, but he shakes his head, swallowing. “Is..what it is.”

In the moment, he looks so sad, hair falling over his face forlornly and brows knitting together. He can’t seem to look at her, and his expression reeks of trying to banish a weight he’s carried for a long time.

Carmen feels guilt punch up her gut in a sudden, shocking gesture.

He was safer now, easily so, but she had foolishly thought he was happier, too. Reality hits her like a tidal wave; It's so clear in this moment that he's not.

“Gray,” She says, voice tender, but it seems to be the wrong move, because he flinches.

“It’s okay,” He smiles at her painfully, trying to cut this short.

“I’m not pitying you.” Carmen says firmly. “I know what it's like, not knowing things about yourself. It drives a person crazy.”

He looks at her again, and she watches as something like a wall comes down. “Yeah.” Gray says simply, but his voice is near-breathless and he looks at her like she’s the answer to something he’s been asking for a long time. “Exactly.”

The thief smiles, but it feels forlorn.

“Sometimes, I swear, it's like you can see straight through me.”

“I’ve been told I have that effect on people,” She tries to joke, but the confession feels heavy. She wonders, as she often does, if he knows.

There have been many times where she’d nearly sworn he’d been on the edge of it - of remembrance - and the warning bells had gone off each time, yet still, she stayed, too invested. Too foolish. She wanted this for as long as she could have it. She wanted to use him up down to the very last drop.

“I’m serious.” A hand finds hers, wraps calloused fingers around her own. “I know it sounds…stupid, but part of me… a part of me feels like I’ve known you my whole life.” He pauses briefly, voice coming out a haresbreadth less sure when he elects to speak again. “Is that insane?”

Carmen stops breathing because it's not insane. It’s not insane, and there’s this ghost of reality so near what he’s just said that she can never let him discover. Knowing that hurts like everything about getting to know him has in these past few weeks. It was a blessing that came double-edged, and it hits her sharp and hard right in the slot between her ribs. The one that no one should’ve been able to get past.

Except him, it would seem.

It's not just the memories of who they once were to each other that stops her from doing the rational thing, the right thing.

It’s him. It’s always been him.

Gray casts a glance her way, and the dim light from the overhead fixture glints off the side of his lips. There’s something in his brown eyes - a vulnerability to them. It’s there for just a second and then his mouth parts for a half-hearted chuckle, lighthearted, dismissive, and made to give her an out, because he’s misinterpreted her silence.

But Carmen forces herself to speak, throat-gone-dry at the crazy irony of her former-enemy-slash-best-friend’s words be damned. “No,” She rasps. “It’s not.”

And then his eyes are on her again, but this time there’s no feint of carefree to hide what he really feels. Carmen watches Gray’s throat bob as he swallows - nervous - but he doesn’t let himself look away. His hair falls over his eyes in something like a shag now - it’s late enough that the hair gel has long since lost its dexterity, and her heart melts at the sight, just a little bit, because it makes him look so much softer, young, like the boy he once was.

She remembers him on the train - all hard eyes and lean angles. Stone-cold angry but so tense and frozen with ill-smothered grief and too-tight arrogance that he’d tripped over it, falling easy and quick to her hand. That night, in his eyes, she thought she had found the end of their story, and, like a bitter, bitter pill, she forced herself to swallow it.

But that hadn’t been the case. It hadn’t been the case at all.

“You’re really something, aren’t you?” Gray muses, eyes dragging over her face. One hand finds a loose strand of hair and then tucks it behind her ear.She snorts under her breath but lets him touch her. Feelings well up inside her like water rush-rush-rushing against a dam, and damn, they’re really building up, threatening to burst.

She cannot reveal this; Her face must stay clean. “You sure know how to beguile a girl, Calloway.”

“I think you’re the one who’s beguiling me.” He whispers, smiling casually like what he said isn’t turning her insides out.

“Gray, I..”

“I thought about you, you know? Before you called, since the last time we met. Since the first time, if I’m completely honest with myself. I thought about you almost every day.”

Her mouth parts; no words come out.

At her reaction, he swallows, seeming to lose a bit of that forwardness he wore so very well. “I probably shouldn’t have admitted that so blatantly. Sorry, I’m not trying to freak you out, or - “

In hindsight it’s stupid. It's so stupid. But thinking smartly could not be farther from Carmen’s mind when she surges forward and kisses him.

At first Gray doesn’t react, remaining agonizingly still as her lips move alone. She pulls off just a little to breathe, to give him room to refuse. It's here the fear that she’s made a mistake creeps inside. He doesn’t want his. He doesn't want you. But then Carmen gathers the courage to look at him - really look at him - and finds his head cocked at an angle to hers, eyelids low. He makes a low sound, and then his lips find hers again.

The pressure of a mouth moving against her own - it's new to her. Gray’s lips are a little chapped yet pleasant against hers. His nose is more profound than Carmen’s is, so he angles his head around, moving, tilting for a better access point. It’s not long before he finds it. His mouth slots against hers just right - just for a second - and Carmen has to gasp. Every sensation rocket-rushing through her is alien. Invigorating.

He smiles against her mouth.

The heady influx of feelings makes her desperate. Carmen kisses him harder and her heart beats wilder. She feels hyper-aware of herself, of her face, her teeth, her nose. She doesn’t want to mess this up, to reveal the card of her inexperience so openly. She moves her lips faster, shaking hand finding Gray’s. He laces their fingers instantly, but the effect is ruined when her teeth knock awkwardly against his.

Gray willfully parts the two of them. “Woah,” He says, lips just barely open for escaping breaths. “Easy there.”

“I’m-” The thief starts, becoming wholly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I..”

“Have you…done this before?” He tries out carefully, like he’s unsure of the answer.

She considers lying. But her heart is racing a little too hard for her to convincingly pull that off. “No.” Carmen admits, voice going a little hard. It's in her nature to attempt to school any crack of vulnerability.

“Really?” There’s a clear note of surprise in the exclamation.

Carmen recoils from him by a small margin. “Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not judging you, Carmen. There’s nothing wrong with not having done it yet. It just…surprised me?” The words spill out of him one after another, like his mouth moving faster than his brain.

“Why?”

Gray laughs, and then stops. “No, sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just…c’mon, love. You’re gorgeous. There can’t have been a shortage of people who’ve wanted to kiss you.”

“Haven’t really ever felt the need to before.” Carmen says. And then, a little quieter: “Til, um. Now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She swallows. It comes out more breathless than she planned

Gray’s lips find an even softer smile. “Well then I’d, uh. Be happy to oblige you. If you still want to.”

His lids lower unconsciously while he’s still looking at her with that expression, and the flutter of his eyelashes steals what's left of the air in her lungs. Carmen ghosts a thumb over the hard sweep of his cheek, where, if he closed his eyes, his lashes might skate over. She imagines herself pressing her mouth to the line, to his jaw. She remembers how amazing his lips felt against her own - however brief that embrace was.

Carmen knows. She knows that she wants this, maybe more than she has wanted anything in a while.

“I do.” The thief whispers. “I just..I don’t really know how?”

Gray’s lower lip twists like he’s biting it from the inside. “We can fix that.” He whispers, and then he leans into her, one strong hand coming around to cup the side of her jaw. His touch is achingly tender as he maneuvers her into a slight angle in relation to his own profile, and Carmen has to make herself swallow. Her head feels dizzy with the prospect of what's to come. In spite of the burgeoning-never-quite-gone-away nerves, she doesn’t let herself shrink back.

Gray leans forward, eyelids drifting very low. Her theory about his lashes is confirmed, which doesn’t help to alleviate the heavy thud of her heartbeat in her ears. “Just relax,” He urges her gently. “Breathe through your nose.”

“Think I know how to breathe.” Carmen rasps indignantly, trying to ignore the way her heart rate picks back up.

His lips aren’t on hers. Not yet. But they’re millimeters apart, and she feels the change in the air when her words make him smile. “Could’ve fooled me, heartstopper.”

“Hey.” She swats at his shoulder. Gray’s breath of a chuckle reverberates across her skin, but he stops short of kissing her, instead, choosing to nudge her nose with his own. When he draws back a little, his eyes have become even more hooded, if that were even possible. Smoldering and dark, Gray looks at her intensely before leaning back in to plug the gap.

Carmen’s heart tightens and instinctively, she closes her eyes, ready for him. But when his lips finally catch hers, he doesn’t hold on for long. Instead, those worked-hands shift along her jaw and he leans in to do it again - supplying a brush of contact, yet refusing to linger.

“Gray,” Carmen whispers, breathier than she’d meant to.

He shoots her an infuriatingly attractive smile. But there - before she can say anything back - his lips slide against her own. The contact is slight at first, but the chase he’s put her through already has Carmen dizzy with want. Gray’s other hand finds the back of her neck as he deepens the embrace, kisses the air out of her lungs. Now she understands why he’d reminded her to breathe through her nose; kissing like this, it's designed to make one breathless. 

In need of an anchor, her fingers grasp at his jean jacket collar. She draws him closer, and he makes a sound of satisfaction against her lips. Again and again, they part and collide, and the world around fades into a hum of nothing. All that matters to her in the moment is this; is him.

Once she’s comfortable, Gray stops maintaining a firm rhythm. He kisses her a little sloppier, mouth more on the side of her chin than her lips. It drives Carmen a little crazy. At some point, she slides onto his lap, her hips bracketing his. He’s warm and solid and inviting under her. She thinks - no, she knows, with fearful clarity, even - that she could get used to this.

It’s hard to place where her guilt buries itself as the night drags on, but it does. It’s not gone, but it's lost. She is lost. She is lost in him and whatever the hell he’s got her wrapped around his finger with.

Chapter Text

Carmen’s been across the world and then some, but rarely did she ever stay in one place for long.

San Diego’s a pit-stop, a homebase, not home. Not yet, at least. Home is a hollow word to her that is hard to imbue new meaning into, not when she’d spent her entire adolescence on the same 10 mile strip of sea-locked land. But there’s something about her visits to Sydney that make her feel like she’s found something long lost. It had never been a random pin in the map to her, not when it had been his city. But now that she’s here? Now that she’s with him?

It starts to mean more to her than she can admit.

Gray’s not an idle person. Every time they meet up, he shows her something new. They plan that second date, and Carmen does end up paying - after much argument - and they order tickets for the Opera. Gray remarks that it's his first time as a member of the audience as opposed to the man behind the scenes.

They hit the beaches. He takes her to his favorite restaurants. She even convinces him to do some of the cheesy tourist stuff he likes to hate on. Gray bemoans every step of said processes, but she can tell he’s enjoying himself.

He invites her to meet his friends.

Since their first hang-out-maybe-date, Carmen feels her nerves rebound in full force.

‘What should I wear?” She asks Player on facetime from the airport bathroom.

Player has no idea why shes asking him. “Just be natural.” He says slowly, then nodding at the end like he decides its the right thing. Carmen doesn’t say anything at his lost expression, but her reaction must be written across her face.

“Hey! You asked!” He mouths off, crossing his arms and looking away. The petulant reaction has her smothering a second urge to laugh. He was usually the picture of calm, so touching upon the rare topics that set him off was its own minor momentous occasion.

“Sorry.” She grins back at his pixelated image.

“Yeah, whatever. Just…”

“I swear to god, if you hit me with the ‘be safe’ thing again…”

Player blinks.

“That is a loaded silence!”

“Now you’re just picking on me.” Player grumps.

“Uh-huh.” Carmen snorts. A flush toggles from behind her and she lets the burden of the conservation shift to his end, inspecting her just-finished makeup for any flaws before releasing her hair from the curling rods she’d thrown them in on the plane. Carmen’s dark-red waves fall down in a smooth, glossy curtain, full of bouncy, manufactured waves that she’d spent the last few years of her jetsetting life perfecting.

Deeming herself fit for presentation, she leaves the bathroom, skipping the terminal altogether with only her trench and her carry bag because that's how in-and-out her visits really were starting to become. The path she walks in the Sydney International Terminal is one she’s treaded well. Every new journey back to the subcontinent, she memorizes a new layer of details about the airport. The only one she knew better was back at home base, in San Diego.

As Carmen’s waiting on her cab, her phone ding’s with what must’ve been her thirtieth notification in the past hour.

Unlike Player, Zack and Ivy didn’t have the freedom to call her at the drop of a hat - they were too busy keeping Shadowsan preoccupied back home - but they made their excitement known regardless.

TEAM RED OG CHAT

Ivy:

ETA?

Player:

arrived. flight home tomorrow morning.

Carmen would’ve rolled her eyes at the treatment of her solo movements like a carefully plotted military venture, but the prospect of going the extra mile seemed to enthuse her team more into keeping the secret. She wasn’t quite ready for whatever she was doing to reach Shadowsan. She still didn’t trust him yet. And yet...

Zack:

Red Dove has REACHED the Firepit, over!

The shrimp is on the barbie!

Red Dove is en route to catch a cracker

Carmen:

Can we please not refer to my friend as cracker

Ivy:

No

Player:

“friend”

Zack:

I too would likr to make a new friend.

Hey Carm. know if Tigress is free next wknd?

Carmen:

Blocked.

Player:

try us.

In spite of herself, she finds herself smiling at her screen.

___________________________

Gray had offered to pick her up from the airport, but she’d declined out of desire to collect herself. She finds the place he sent her easily, arrives on time, even. But she lingers outside long enough to step in fifteen minutes late.

An overhead bell twinkles when Carmen pushes the door of the pub in. Heads turn when she enters as they always do. Normally, Carmen barely notices, but tonight there is one face in particular she searches for.

She spots Gray’s hair before she sees his face. He’s hard to miss, but even without the spiky brown locks to distinguish him, she knew him down to every last detail- from the trademark denim to his blinding smile.

“Carmen!” He calls out, getting up to receive her. Her eyes flick to the table he stands from and the faces that watch back, and suddenly, she’s nervous.

“Gray! Hi.” She says, and her arms feel limp.

Carmen is not averse to touch, but experience has made it so she’s become frugal with it. A hand on an arm here, a cock of the hip there, and it seems small, spur of the moment, but behind each movement is calculation. Occasionally, her friends may draw more natural gestures out of her, but for the most part, she has come to guards her feelings more carefully now.

With him it had been different.

She’d never been shy with him, not because of him but because of who she used to be. But then he left, and suddenly, pain like she’d never felt before made it feel as though this “keeping your heart open” thing was more trouble than it was worth.

And now they’re here- older and different. He’s not just her dorky friend anymore. He’s the guy she’s kissed, that she wants to kiss again, and she’s never really done that before and maybe there was a way to do these things, and maybe-

Gray’s arms reach out, drawing her in without a second thought.

“You look amazing," he says, eyes bright, and Carmen’s breath catches. He’s so earnest - so certain in the way he moves. The unquestioned touch dissolves her anxiety like salt in water.

“Well, one of us had to pick up the slack” She forces herself to say as they separate.

Gray snorts, palms still rounded over her shoulders even when he steps away. “God, I missed you. I’m so glad you made it.”

Carmen has to swallow the familiar thrill in her veins - the zing that comes with feeling wanted. It’s dangerous, because it's a tenuous feeling to come to crave. “Was there ever any doubt?”

“Nah,” He says, and a dimple winks at her. “Not like you’ve ever stood me up before.”

She swats his shoulder. “Don’t tempt me.”

His grin widens for flashing white teeth. Made for smiling, she thinks, and not for the first time, either. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Watch it, Calloway.” She warns, matching his expression without even meaning to. “Besides, I wasn’t gonna miss the chance to meet your friends.”

“Oh, yeah. Those jerks.”

They turn their attention to the four other people seated at Gray's table, who are all watching them with different degrees of curiosity.

Carmen opens her mouth to say something but chooses instead to smile, feeling a little awkward. Okay, more than a little.

It was a lot easier to pull off mysterious, smooth, and beguiling when the people you were interacting with were marks instead of the friends of someone you cared about.

But maybe they were marks? They were her obstacles to Gray’s continued affection, clearly. She probably had to impress them, pass some unnamed test or something. (“Blah blah blah, are you a good enough girl for our friend?” “your friend is a former white collar criminal.”) Or maybe they could be marks in a more traditional sense; her instincts kick in and she hones in on a decently expensive watch, a new model of iphone peeking out from one of the women’s purses, a wallet placed carelessly tableside-

“Hey!” An austere male voice cuts through her inner-spiel. Carmen blinks, and she doesn’t change the train of her eyes physically, but in her head, her focus shifts from the watch hanging under a black sleeve to the face of the dark-haired guy that wears it. Along with the watch, he sports a bright, sloppy grin, and he is alone on his side of the booth, the seat empty from where Gray had gotten up to receive her.

“So you’re Graham’s mystery girl. The gang and I were beginning to think he made you up.”

“Oh. fuck off, Taylor.” Gray rolls his eyes. “Also, I never said she’s my girl. Quit being weird! We’re just friends!”

“That so?” Taylor asks, raising a brow her way, clearly not buying it. Carmen’s lip twitches, and she feels herself relax. She decides she likes Taylor.

“Verdict’s out.” Carmen smiles enigmatically. “We’ll see if he gets lucky.”

“Ha!”

Gray snorts, but a matching grin tugs at the corner of his lips. “So, Carmen, I’d like you to meet my friends. The idiot over there is Taylor - “

“Hey!”

“And this is Patricia - “

“Pat.” Corrects the woman with a blonde pixie cut.

“Pat - and that’s Ronnie and then Ronnie’s fiance, Lottie.” Ronnie and Lottie wave. “Everybody, this is Carmen.”

Carmen waves back, and the table choruses a slightly slurred ‘hey Carmen!” before Gray sits back down, looking at her expectantly to plop down beside him. Pat and Lottie aren’t having any of it, though.

“You brought her here to meet us, not stick by your side the whole time, didn’tcha?”

“Your side is full, Lot - “

“Ronnie, move.” Lottie orders, swatting her partner’s shoulder.

Ronnie - a quiet guy, at least, compared to his peers, who wore sunglasses in doors for some reason - starts to shift without protest.

“You don’t have to-” Carmen starts.

“Nah, nah. It’s good.” He slurs, and she decides that maybe he isn’t quieter than the bunch, just drunker. “Happy wife, happy life.”

“Damn right.” Lottie says.

“Scoot over, Taylor.”

Patricia pats the now empty spot next to her. Carmen tentatively takes the seat, removing her scarf and wrapping it around the handle of her bag.

“Two minutes in, and you guys are already hijacking my date.” Gray groans, putting his face in his hands.

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll get over it.” Patricia waves him away. “Go check on our shots, will you? They’re taking ages.”

“What am I, your busboy?” Gray mutters, but he starts getting out of the booth. Before he goes, he catches Carmen’s eye. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“I’ll survive.” She says, only slightly rueful about it.

Carmen watches him leaving for a moment and the dull nerves she’d tamped down earlier suddenly pick up a smidge. She’s not bad with people - not at all - learning the silver tongue is a trick of the trade, really, but with Gray’s friends it's somehow different. It all feels like it matters more.

“Men.” Lottie mutters, also watching Gray walk off.

“Ay. What’d we do?” Taylor throws his hands up.

“If you have to ask, there’s not much I can tell you.”

“Losing battle, bro.” Ronnie shakes his head.

“Women.” Taylor throws back anyway.

“Oy, can you pause the imbecile act for a night?” Pat hisses, gesturing not-so-subtly at Carmen.

“Carmen doesn’t mind. Right, Carmen?”

The thief smiles, comforted at once by the familiar toss and turn of friendly rivalry. “I don’t mind. I’m actually really glad I finally get to meet you all. Gray talks about you a lot.”

“Does he?” Patricia’s grin morphs into more of a smirk. “Probably told you all sorts of horror stories, then.”

“Just the funny ones.”

Patricia’s smirk parts for a laugh. “You’re cool, Carmen. Definitely too cool for Graham.”

Carmen smiles involuntarily, remembering a not unsimilar thing Player had said in passing. “Gray says I’m too chic to be cool.”

“When’d he get so uppity?” Lottie snorts. “Like Mr. Hair Gel is the King of Rugged Living.”

“Right?” Carmen says. “I try and tell him, but he won’t hear it.”

“It’s all that hair.” Taylor says matter-of-factly. “Obstructs any outside noise and logic from penetrating.”

Pat’s subsequent burst of laughter sets Carmen off, too, and soon, the whole table is reduced to a fit of laughter to the point that they don’t notice Gray return.

“What’s so funny?” He asks.

“Uhhh, best if you don’t know, old boy.”

“I leave you guys alone for two minutes and you’re already indoctrinating her into your cult.”

Taylor blinks. “Guys. He’s onto us. “

“Should we kill him?” Patricia asks.

Carmen narrows her eyes. “Without mercy.”

Gray’s mouth falls open in mock surprise. “Carmen, not you too!”

“Sorry.” She smiles a serene, deadly smile. “You’ve left us little options.”

“You’re all a lot of traitors. I’ll remember this.” He declares, ever-dramatic, before bending down to set the platter of topped off shot glasses he’d been precariously balancing in his left hand.

“SHOTS.” Taylor exclaims. “Graham you are a wonderful, wonderful man.”

“I’m aware. Hope these hooligans haven’t scared you too bad, Carm.”

“Be nice to your friends, Gray.”

His mouth falls open. “Now that is cult talk if I ever heard it.”

“Down boy.” Taylor chortles. “You heard the lady! Be nice to us!”

“You should hear how they talk about me!”

The whole table laughs harder.

Gray sighs. “You guys are karma for me bullying my foster brother in primary, aren’t you?”

“Precisely, Graham.” Ronnie says. “Now sit down already before people start asking you to take their order.”

“Mate, we’re in a pub.” Gray rolls his eyes but complies.

Like sharks at a feeding frenzy, the table wastes no time going for the shot glasses.

“I’ve been waiting all week for this,” Lottie says, near inhaling her glass.

“Right? Management’s been on a tear lately, swear it.”

Carmen’s the only one who hesitates.

Gray notices, catching her eye over the table. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t embarrass her. But she can tell his expression is meant to read, it's okay if you don’t want to.

It’s true, Carmen isn’t a big drinker - at most feigning sipping on champagne whilst undercover or having half a glass of bourbon in the evenings with Shadowsan. And she’s rarely been drunk before, save for a hastily spent bottle of tito’s she’d shared with Zack once, but the night’s got her feeling young and brave. Its nice to not be ‘the great Carmen Sandiego’ for once, but instead - just a young woman out on the town, drinking with friends and a guy she liked.

Gray keeps his eyes on her, hand reaching across the table to brush hers. Carmen smiles, reassuring him with a gentle squeeze while her other hand reaches for the shot.

She’s doing this. She wants to.

“I raise a toast.” Taylor stands, all bravado. “To our man Ronnie, who finally grew some balls and put a ring on the lovely Lottie!”

“If I’m ‘the lovely lottie,’ why don’t I get a toast?”

He sighs. “That was impl- Fine. To Ronnie and Lottie.”

“I want my own toast.”

“Order the next round and it’s all yours, darling.”

She kicks him under the table.

“Ow! I forgot you were a mean drunk!”

“That's why I love her.” Ronnie slurs, draping across the table and grasping for his fiance’s hand.

Gray rolls his eyes and raises his glass. “To Lottie and Ronnie.”

“To Lottie and Ronnie!”

“Get nasty, people.” Taylor adds. “Second round’s on me.”

___________________________

One more round turns into two, three, four, and Carmen, for better or worse, accepts a drink each time. The night swarms around her, the chatter of the pub drowning out thoughts of anything but the here and now. She feels herself grow warm and liquid-heavy, which is alien, because, in spite of her effortless mannerisms, she’s usually in a state of finely exerted control. Relinquishing that in favor of relaxing is no small feat for her.

She forgets what she’d been nervous about. Gray’s friends never seem to run out of things to say. None of them are the same, yet somehow, they all fit together. Taylor and Gray argue and bicker quickly but laugh just easily. They remind her of Zack and Ivy. Ronnie and Lottie pick up on Carmen’s love of traveling and quiz her about it for at least thirty minutes before Gray forces them to stop. Patricia, or, Pat, is the heart of the group, and seems to keep Gray in check, giving him the right amount of grief the moment he says something stupid. It’s hard to believe they were just coworkers once. If Carmen’s honest, the group reminds her of another group she and Gray used to be a part of. One that had long since splintered and fallen apart. The memory is bitter for the usual reasons, but, surprisingly, also a little sweet.

The group entertains her and are nice to her, but she can see it in their eyes: They are vetting her. Seeing if she’s good enough for their friend. The dramatic irony of the fact that Carmen is the one who’d actually known him the longest out of this whole table is not lost on her. In fact, it weighs on her.

But it's easy to lose herself in the moment. Easy to pretend she has nothing to do with their past and that maybe, she and Gray really did just meet a few months ago. Maybe they really were just going out and getting to know each other like normal young people do all the time, and maybe his friends were in the right for inspecting her like they would with any girl he might’ve brought around.

___________________________

“Jump off the roof and I give you 20.”

“You shittin me? That wouldn’t even buy me takeout. Ronnie, your fiance is tryna scam me.”

“I’m staying out of this.”

“Yeah, you would.”

“The hell-”

___________________________

“What are you doing with this idiot, anyway?”

“He has pretty hair,” She explains, like its very matter of fact, which it is, because everything feels incredibly serious yet not at the moment.

“Yeah, I have pretty hair. So shove it, Taylor.”

“He kiss with you that mouth?” Taylor’s lips slice into a grin.

Gray groans. Carmen leans forward. “Something like that.”

Taylor’s eyebrows shoot up and Ronnie snorts.

“Quiet. The round’s here!” Lottie claps her hands gleefully.

___________________________

“Carmen! Carmen! Carmen!”

“Graham! Graham!”

“You’re so going down.” Carmen winks

“Oh, please. Pack it up, Red. No way you out drink me.”

“Wanna bet?”

“I’m game.” Gray grins back at her.

Carmen teeters where she stands, but she doesnt waver in forcing down bitter shot after shot, swallowing quick before they can do any real damage. It was downright disgusting to drink at first, but now, a good hour later, she’s vaguely starting to get the appeal.

“Oh my god! Thats horrible!” She declares. She reaches for one more anyway.

___________________________

TEAM RED OG CHAT

Carmen:

guys

guyd i lovr u so much

Player:

????

u good???

Zack:

who says that when someone tells them they love them

Player:

HELLO. This is Carmen. As in the sandiego.

Zack:

the fuck

Ivy:

no no hes got a point

Carmen:

i just

i lovr u and ur awrsomme and im si glad we met

and yeure the sweetest everthing peopl

Zack: awww love ya boss

Carmen:

no boSs. Camren. 

Camren

Camren

CARMEN.

Ivy:

oh, i get it now.

we love you too Carm!

Player:

….she’s plastered its so over

if graham tries anything i will personally plummet his credit score to negative 3000

and doom his entire bloodline

Ivy:

can you just be normal and say you love her back

Player:

…lyt

Ivy:

Goddamn zoomers

Player:

We are in the SAME fckn GENERATION!

Ivy:

Not if i have anything to say about it

Player:

what does that even mean

Ivy:

whatever you want it to mean

Carmen: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Zack:

So real

😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻

Player:

i am the only normal person here

Ivy:

you’re vitamin d deficient homebody who spends the vast majority of his waking hours engaging in fraudulent activities that border on international terrorism 

Player:

hey

Carmen:

no beinh mean ti pkayer!11

Player:

what she said

Carmen:

only i get to do thst

Player:

bruh

___________________________

It’s late. The women corral into the bathroom of the third bar of the night. They’re all giggling over something or another from stall to stall and are most certainly encroaching on the territory of ‘obnoxiously loud,’ but at this point, they are too buzzed to do anything about it. Carmen’s not used to girl chat. On the island her closest female friend had been Sheena, who wanted little to do with her when she could help it, and off it, it’d been Ivy, who was younger and also sort of her subordinate? Not really? It was complicated.

Short of it is, she’s new to this.

In time with the sound of a flush being toggled, Lottie emerges from the last stall, making quick work of the automatic water tap. “Wish me luck gals.” She slurs, and with a wink, she’s back out there. They’ve sobered up a bit - switched to sodas and waters depending on the girl - but not by much.

Carmen and Patricia linger by the mirror a bit longer.

Carmen inspects herself in the dingy reflective surface, correcting the line of her cateye and touching up the powder the sweat and heat of the night have melted clean through. Patricia frowns at herself and then digs through her bag, seeming to come up empty for whatever she was searching for.

“Don’t know why I bother with lipstick to these things. I always end up eating it off.”

“Want a touch-up?” Carmen asks, holding out her own.

Patricia smiles. “You’re a doll.” The bright red she reapplies is a far cry from her muted pink from earlier, but she seems to like it. “How’s it?”

“Suits you.”

“Not as well as it suits you.” She says, good natured. “Graham told us about your penchant for red, but it really took seeing for myself for the effect to hammer home.”

Carmen grins. “Oh, c’mon, Pat, you look great. But he really said that? What else has he said about me?”

“Not too much. He told us you're Argentinian and grew up in America and do some sort of work with a children’s charity.”

“That's..about right.” Its an odd feeling, circling back to that lie except with him in on it this time. Not that he was in the loop of much else.

“I think he was trying to be nonchalant so the guys wouldn’t give him too much grief about it. But it didn’t work.” Pat says, interrupting her stupor. Then, she adds: “He clearly likes you a lot.”

Carmen can’t fully smother her giddy expression at the sound of that, so she pivots with an attempt at nonchalance. “I’d hope so. We’re friends.”

“You know what I mean.” Patricia elbows her gently. “He doesn’t usually bring girls to meet us.”

That gets her. “Really?”

“Really. He’s dated a little and of course we’ve set him up with friends here and there, but it never really went anywhere. He was never really this…” She pauses, struggling for the words. “Free. Least not to my knowledge.”

The thief exhales softly, the information sinking inside her. It makes her feel happy. It makes her feel alarmed.

“Don’t let that scare you, hey?” Patricia says.

Carmen eases into a confident grin. “I don’t scare easy.”

She’s met with a bright red smirk. “I’d assumed as much.” Pat presses her lips together, losing a bit of the mirth in her expression. “Graham has been through a lot. More than you can tell at first glance, and, I don’t - I don’t know what exactly he’s told you, but…he’s a good guy. That’s all I’m trying to say, I guess.”

For a moment, she’s at a loss for words. Then it ends, and she realizes what she has to say, what she wants to say. “I’m glad Gray has someone like you.” She murmurs, wondering why the words feel like they’re getting stuck in her throat. “You’re a good friend.”

And she means it. It’s reassuring to know someone like Patricia was in his corner for when -

When what?

When this ended?

Carmen sucks a breath inside, fingers gripping the granite counter. Was she already writing the end of their story? Just like that?

The thought drives up into her like an icicle wedged into her chest cavity, makes her just shy of nauseous.

But Pat doesn’t notice. Half drunk, she just gives Carmen another of her amused smiles. “Gray, huh?”

“Sorry?”

“What you guys call each other.” She says, making a gesture with her hands. “Gray. Carm. I think it's cute.”

“Everyone calls me Carm.”

“But not everyone calls him Gray. No one at all, actually. Except you.”

“Really?” Carmen pauses. “I mean, I know he doesn’t love being nicknamed, but-”

“Oh, he hates them! Sure does love giving them out, though, doesn’t he?”

That makes her laugh. “Tell me about it.”

“But he lets you call him that. So you must be special.”

Carmen feels her cheeks heat. “I…”

“You’re a good one, Carm.” Patricia smiles back at her. “I hope you stick around.”

She ducks out of the bathroom, lips still red as blood, red as Carmen. Its like she wears the impression of the thief’s namesake - unmistakable, downright unignorable in the moment. But ultimately - impermanent.

____________________________________________

Ronnie and Lottie are the first to bid the group good night - around 1 am. Taylor cites a housecall he has scheduled in the morning and takes off next. When it’s time for Patricia to go, Gray and Carmen walk her to her Lyft, hanging back to help her into her ride.

“Text the chat when you get home, OK?” Gray says, handing her her bag once she finishes clicking on her seatbelt.

“Okay, mom.”

“I’m serious, alright? Take care of yourself. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Mmhm.” She murmurs, out of it.

“Au revoir,” Carmen adds, feeling sloppy and buzzed herself.

“What?” Pat looks back up.

“Means bye,” Gray supplies.

“Look at you, polyglot.” Carmen giggles - yes, she actually giggles and then stops, blinking furiously.

“Guess I paid more attention in school than my teachers’ used to think.” He shoots her a half-grin, clearly a little proud of himself.

Patricia pauses to look between them conspicuously. In spite of her sluggish movements, her eyes twinkle with quick-wittedness.

“Alright, guess I should go. But you kids have loads and loads of fun for me, alright?”

“Good night, Pat.” Gray hisses. He doesn’t shut the door fast enough for them to miss her hyena-sharp laugh.

They watch as the car takes off. This late, even Sydney’s quiet, or, as close to quiet as a city gets.

Carmen chuckles drily. “She’s funny.”

“She’s a menace.”

She laughs again, teetering on her boots. Carmen is suddenly hyper aware of where her weight bears down on the focal point of her heels, of how thin and precarious they are. She wonders if she’s ever really noticed before.

Gray shifts, hair tousling in the corner of her vision, and she remembers that he’s there and peeks at him.

He’s lifting his head – eyes going up to the full-dark sky and catching a white slice of the moon’s light — and rocking on the balls of his feet. She watches him for a second, transfixed, until a sharp breeze whistles through the street and raises her exposed skin to gooseflesh.

“Ffffffuck.” She mutters, rubbing at her arms.

“You’re cold.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I want to.” He insists, and he hands her his jacket. “No way I’d leave a lady hanging.”

Carmen rolls her eyes. “You’re a dork.” She says, but she accepts, handing him her bag and folded coat before slipping into the denim.

“Dork who’s keeping you warm.”

“Are you now?” She cocks her head and smiles lazily at him.

Gray’s eyes widen. “I only meant-”

“I know what you meant.” She teases, effortlessly slipping her hand into his as they walk.

“Touche.” He mutters, lifting her hand to his lips. His mouth only just brushes her skin, but even when he lets her go, she swears her knuckles still feel warm.

Carmen adjusts the folds of her sleeves. Gray’s jacket is baggy on her, loose from the shoulders to the forearms. It’s old and faded and fraying at the seams, but it's warm from being worn. And it smells like him.

She could do worse in terms of outerwear, she thinks distantly.

“I’m sorry about your coat, by the way.”

Carmen looks up at him slowly, finding that his expression still reads a little remorseful even though it must’ve been his third apology.

She blinks, not used to feeling this sluggish. Her attention drifts over the folded trench draped over his arm that, on first glance, anyone would tell her she was an idiot for not wearing on a night like this. But a second glance would reveal the still-wet frontal section that reeked of the tequila a highly inebriated Taylor had knocked onto her, which wouldn’t have been a good mix with the icy air.

He’d apologized profusely, but she refused any attempts to take care of it or to pay, both from Taylor and Gray.

Carmen wasn’t sure either could afford it. The tastes she’d developed in her short foray into adulthood weren’t exactly practical.

Before she can say its OK and to fuck off, he keeps going.

“Just can’t believe my mate ruined your coat on day 1. Not a great first impression, I’d wager.”

He smiles, apologetic. Carmen stares at him dumbly for a beat.

“Actually, my first impression of Taylor was him roasting the shit out of you. Made me think: this guy’s pretty funny. No spilled drinks changed that, I promise.”

She steps well past what constituted socially acceptable shared space, even amongst friends. But maybe not friends who kiss sometimes. Carmen shoves a manicured finger into his chest, doesn’t even notice why his eyes widen or how close she’s gotten. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” She chirps. And then she boops his nose.

The words all kind of just slip out without much preamble. She’s not in a state to think very hard about it. At least, not until she notices his silence.

Carmen blinks and finds him staring at her with an unreadable expression. He’s biting down on his lower lip in a way that looks kind of illegal. Eyes bright and unafraid.

“What? Did I use ‘roast’ incorrectly?” She sputters, and the balance tips; all the embarrassment that escaped her before hits her at once. Player had said…well, maybe a homeschooler wasn’t the best source for ‘modern lingo.’

“Huh? No.” He laughs, like that had been the last thing he’d expected her to say.

“Then why’re you looking at me like that?” She shifts tactics, trying to get her power back. “You tryna kiss me or something, Calloway?”

“Believe it or not, I’m capable of thinking about other things.” He arcs back with a wily grin.

“Could’ve fooled me.” She huffs.

“You’re the spy, darling. I’ll leave the fooling up to you.”

“See that you do.” She drives a firm finger into the hard plane of his chest.

He laughs softly. “I’m just realizing something.”

“Realizing what?” Carmen asks, but her breath catches when he reaches a hand out and tucks one of her curtain bangs behind her ear.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Is it nothing or is there a something to worry about? Pick one or the other.”

He clicks his tongue, half amused, half exasperated. “It’s secret.”

“Not fair.” She pouts, head swimming. Whether it was because of the alcohol still coursing through her veins or the way he was looking at her, she didn’t know.

“World isn’t, Red.” He grins, and she’s struck by the memory of his voice saying something else. Something similar.

“The world isn’t fair, Blacksheep. It’s different out there. Trust me, I’ve been.”

“Yeah, yeah. You just want to keep all the adventure to yourself.”

“Carmen?” He says, and it takes her a moment to come back to herself, to grasp that this is him in the now. Not him then, though to her, they were one in the same. The same, but different. Same smile, different intent. Same eyes, different depths. Same boy. New man.

She blinks, biting her lip hard to ground herself. “Yeah. Coming.”

They walk for a while, quiet as lambs. Carmen sways only a negligent amount (really, she’s fine!) and valiantly shrugs off his efforts to directly support her. Gray still hangs just close enough to keep her steady, though, and she relies on his ever-near body heat as one would a compass or the north star to keep herself moving and steady.

As they walk, Carmen kicks at rocks, interested in the pavement and one foot after the other and the blades of grass that peek through the cement cracks. Hard, solid ground that she feels heavy enough to sink into, if she really let the disorientation get to her. Gray is pitter-pattering after her, still there, still by her side, and who would believe that after all the things they’d been through? She hardly can. She wonders if he’s ever thought something of the same, even if their relationship in his eyes has been built off half truths and lies of omission.

Her heart lurches. That urge to tell him everything and, also, the one to tell him nothing kick her in the stomach at once, and for a second its like she doesn’t know how to breathe. It isn’t fair, none of this is fair. She sneaks a glance at him, afraid that he’s noticed, afraid that he can read her mind, because Carmen is not a girl who has ever had anything to keep.

But Gray’s attention is elsewhere.

“I love this city,” He breaks the silence, wistful, and she peeks to find his head turned upwards. ”But I miss seeing the stars.”

It’s a sentimental observation, the kind hated by the faculty and that took you down multiple marks if you brought them anywhere near class. (“This is tactical escape analysis! Not pansy 101!”) It’s something she had long ago learned that he was full of.

The hum of traffic and pedestrians are omni-present, but the recollection that tugs on her consciousness reminds her of quieter, more natural sounds: waves, lapping at a lonely shore. Bare sea wind, the distant shrieks of gulls, and the familiar sound of her best friend’s breathing, right by her side. VILE island had a curfew, but in a school for would-be criminals, that was bound to be broken. Gray and Blacksheep were hardly the first, but the reason he’d insisted on it many a times over was one she found rather mundane: To see the stars.

The plethora of constellations bursting over inky black were undeniably beautiful. However, they’d been a fixture as constant as the rising sun in Blacksheep’s life—certainly nothing worth gawking over. It was only when she left, when she discovered what life was like on the continents, the cities, that she came to realize why. The sky looked very different for most people.

Carmen eyes him and wonders when in this night she stepped into a memory.

“The view's better from the outback.” She murmurs, nervous, fully expecting him to tell her sure, but it's even better from the island.

But he doesn’t.

“Thats right. The night we met, you said you were going on a tour. That wasn’t just for sightseeing, was it?”

Carmen’s chuckle comes out more reserved than her state of inebriation should’ve probably lent itself to. “No, it wasn’t.”

“And to think, I just thought you wanted some travel tips!” He shakes his head, caught up in his spiel. “What a poor sap I was. Beholden to the whims of a mysterious girl in red.”

“Not so poor.” She pokes him. “You got what you wanted in the end, didn’t you?”

He smirks at her in a way that’s annoyingly smug, and annoyingly familiar. “I guess there are worse pastimes than getting manipulated by beautiful women–hey!”

A half-second of stunned silence, and then: “Carmen Sandiego. Did you just flick me?”

She elects not to confirm the obvious and skips ahead of all the doubts that trail her like a shadow. But there are no shadows without a source.

He jogs to catch up. “These the elusive *spy* skills I’ve heard so much about?”

Smile on hand, hair billowing in the wind, and she thinks he’s like the sun. Following her wherever she runs. Creating her shadows and bathing her in light.

She cracks a grin. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“And to think, I thought you were a good guy.”

“I am.” She says, but it sounds like a lie.

But the sun blinds all lies.

“Nah.” He wags a finger, is all ease and innocent trouble. “You clearly use your powers for evil-doing. But you’re not gonna get away with it.”

“No?”

“Afraid not.”

“And how’re you gonna stop me?” She juts her chin up, all blind faith and unearned want. Smirk on her lips that matches his, that screams in the face of every daunting shadow the night creates.

Six inches of air, maybe less, separate them. Distant neon light skips along the high points of his profile in soft relief, tripping up between the gaps of his lashes. He meant too much for her to ever totally forget his face, but relearning his fine details once they’d reconnected had been rewarding.

“Got a foil-proof plan in the works.” Gray says, swallowing, and Carmen is hit with a sudden, intense urge to kiss him.

“Well, then,” She whispers, and her voice comes out lower than she’d planned. She tilts her head a haresbreadth closer, making like she's going to close the gap. “I guess you’ll just have to just…come…get me!”

At the last second, she tears off, breaking into a run and stumbling over the asphalt. Gray’s on her in a second, shouts of protest on his lips that bring her to laughter. She doesn’t falter once, weaving around the few remaining pedestrians like she’d been doing it all her life. He’s not far behind.

The night’s young and the air is cool, but she’s all warm inside, light as a feather. Seconds turn into minutes and Carmen never slows. Neither does Gray. She could run for days, and she thinks that he’d follow her. She doesn’t stop laughing, right up to when she finally lets him catch up, arms ensnaring her by the small of her waist.

“You’ve got something of mine.”

“Yeah? Come and get it.” She snaps her teeth at him, grinning.

He doesn’t have to bend far to kiss her, and Carmen likes it that way. Likes how much she’s changed and how much he’s changed and how it all seems to meet somewhere in the middle. She kisses like she’s hungry, biting on his lip, hand snaking under the carefully tucked fabric edge of the shirt. Her hands meet hot skin, and he breathes sharply, pressing a final, chaste kiss to the side of her mouth before willfully extricating himself.

“You’re drunk.” He chastises, but his eyes are bright.

“No, you.” She whines, trying to catch his lips again. Too slow, Sandiego. He ducks around her but doesn't let her go.

“I’m not a lightweight. Unlike somebody else.”

“I’ve got noooo clue what you’re trying to imply, Calloway. Zero. None. Nao, Obrigado.”

“And that’s the fourth unprompted language of the night.” He sucks in a breath. “C’mon. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“My place.”

“Buy me dinner first, dammit.”

“Hardy-har-har. There’s no way I’m letting you uber across the city to your hotel this late. I’ve got the space.”

“‘S fine.I’m already checked out. I can hop on the shuttle to the terminal and sleep there.”

“You were planning on sleeping in the airport?!”

“Maybe..”

“No way. I’m not letting it happen.”

“You're bossy.” She narrows her eyes.

“And you’re plastered. You can sleep it off at mine. C’mon. Please?” Carmen opens her mouth to resume her protest, but something about the look in his eye stops her.

“Hmph. ” She pouts, but she lets him drag her along.

“There you go. C’mon,” He says softly, catching her when she stumbles over an uneven break of pavement. “Let’s get you home.”

“You got a car that runs across the ocean, Gray?” She slurs, collapsing onto him. The night’s cold. He’s warm, solid, and, maybe this is the drink talking, but, he smells kind of intoxicating.

“Don’t have a car, period, darling. Case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh wow.” She says into his shoulder. “Saaamee. Actually that's not…my friend Zack. I bought him a car.”

“You don’t have your own car, but you bought your friend one?”

Her eyes are screwed tight and her face is still buried in the crook of his shoulder. But she can imagine his eyebrows raising. Eyes flashing. She feels the phantom weight of his hands drifting over her shoulders, like he means to steady her, to gently coax her off, but he makes no such movement.

“I’m not allowed to drive if we can help it.” She frets. “Z…says…im like…really bad at it.”

“That so?”

“But its bullshit!” She says, driving a finger into his chest.

“I’m sure.” He murmurs.

“But I got a bike, so fuck em.”

“No way, you got a motorbike?”

“Mm.”

“You gotta take me around sometime.”

“Pshhh..you’d prolly…fall right off.”

“Nah.” He winks. “I’d hang on tight.”

Carmen raises her face, heat crossing her cheeks. “And you wouldn’t let go?”

He turns to her, and maybe it's her head. Maybe it's the lighting, or, maybe, he really just looks like that - blinding, ephemeral. A Figure edged in moonlight with eyes so sharp, they pierce her. He smiles - and small as it is - she feels the promise in it - the immutable understanding that this, that the two of them…had something that couldn't be quantified. Couldn't be named.

Gray’s hand finds her and her ice cold fingers are enveloped in a touch that is warm and familiar. His answer comes in a whisper, a ghost in the deep night. It wraps around her all the same.

“I wouldn’t let go.”