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Michael hits every red light on his way to work. That should’ve cued him in. He chooses to ignore the possibility, and lets his GPS redirect him through the bumpiest imaginable road. Somehow, he stumbles into a heated organised protest, and then an open flash mob. He waits three full minutes for the elevator, no less. And then the automatic doors to Jamal’s lab close on him.
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you.”
“Oh?” Jamal answers, vigorously stabbing away at his keyboard. “What makes you think so?”
“Flash mob, really?”
Jamal’s eyes glint as he says, “I’ll use whatever I need to knock some sense into you.”
“In another life, you would've made an excellent criminal.”
“And you, an excellent agent.”
Michael frowns at Jamal’s almost caustic tone. He knows he is an excellent agent. Jamal knows as well. The whole organisation knows. Which is why they continue to send him on the most dangerous, impossible missions that leave him bruised and broken. Sometimes worse.
It’s fine. Michael doesn’t mind.
The last one nearly turned him into a human pincushion as he unthinkingly inserted himself within range of a sniper barrage, just to stop his target from escaping. He had succeeded, despite the deep bullet graze in his now bandaged shoulder. The mission had been a success. He can’t quite figure out what Jamal means.
Jamal glares at him. “Never mind,” he mutters. “You’ll never learn. I’ve put in a request for two weeks of leave.”
Michael blinks. “I only need one. “It’s only a scratch.”
“Two weeks,” Jamal repeats flatly. “Now go home and rest. And don’t come back looking for work. I’ve disabled your ID card.”
Michael opens his mouth to protest tech geniuses abusing their power, but decides against it when he realises Jamal's already turned back to his computer. There’s no arguing when Jamal’s absorbed in code.
The way back is pointedly smoother. The lights remain green for suspiciously long and his favourite parking spot’s vacated. He comes home to a whistling kettle. Michael sits dumbly on the couch, sipping his tea. The ceiling lights flicker when he’s about to doze off and give himself an awful crick in the back in the morning. So he gets up, and makes it to bed.
==
Michael doesn’t think much about the missions they send him on. Good agents never do. It doesn't matter that the chances of survival are meagre, or that he has to put his body through unthinkable abuse. Assassination, infiltration, or honeypot, he’ll do his job. And no one complains. Except his handler.
It’s Tuesday, the end of his two weeks. Jamal skims the dossier for his current mission and curses Control to hell and back. “Do they think you have nine lives?” he seethes. “Are they trying to terminate their own agent?”
Michael shrugs. It honestly doesn't seem that much different to the others he’s been getting. He tells Jamal as much.
Jamal slams the files down. “Why don’t you ever question this? It’s not right, what they’re doing to you.”
Michael sighs. They’ve been through this before. “I can get this done. You know that. Would you rather send someone else?” He leaves out the part they both know he's insinuating. After all, how can you weigh one life against another?
Jamal deflates, visibly upset. Michael frets internally, wondering at what to do, before settling his hand cautiously on Jamal’s shoulder. “You’ll keep me alive,” he says, affecting confidence. “You always do.” Skill and luck aside, Michael knows he’d hardly be effective without Jamal at his abc, in his ear, giving him instructions and research and escape routes. The nights before his missions Jamal stays awake, checking and double checking and triple checking all the intel, making sure he has contingency plans from A all the way to E, doing everything he can to raise his agent’s survival rate.
“Yeah,” Jamal says finally, tiredly. “I will.”
“I’ll start packing then.”
“Don’t forget this.” Jamal pushes a package toward him.
Michael’s always excited for new gadgets. “Is it an exploding pen? An exploding cufflink, maybe?” The last time Jamal had bestowed him with a high frequency whine which could incapacitate people for a short period of time. He had lost it, of course, in a fight. That always happens. It’s a wonder Jamal still gives him anything.
“Why does everything have to explode with you?” there’s a hint of a smile on Jamal’s face now, at least.
“Instant gratification,” Michael explains. He unwraps the package, pulling out a slim, black stainless steel watch. Monochrome and simple, just how he likes it. Michael blinks, uncomprehending. It’s beautiful. He looks to Jamal, who’s decidedly avoiding his eyes. “What does it do?”
“Tracker, which will let me know if you’re off in the sewers or something,” Jamal returns. “Has an internal map of the city. Tranquiliser dart. A prong that will deliver a hundred milliamps. And…a distress signal.”
“Next thing you know it’ll be telling the time, too.”
Jamal breaks into a short laugh, the line of tension in his shoulders dissipating fractionally. “Don’t lose it this time.”
“I won’t,” Michael promises softly, slipping the watch onto his wrist. Jamal’s eyes flick to where it sits. “Thank you.”
==
In the end, they get orders to stand down. The drug trafficking rings deeper than what they had previously suspected. Making a move now would only spook them, and get them to relocate. Michael’s new instructions are to simply observe who they believe to be the leader. Which actually results in a rather relaxed mission.
He drifts around the cobbled streets of Rome while Jamal gives history lessons through his earpiece. It’s nice, soothing. Despite him trailing a dangerous criminal. Michael sits by the trevi fountain with a sandwich, seven people away from the target, with Jamal telling him about D’Artagnan, the infamous raider who had managed to steal coins for thirty-four years before he was caught.
He tries but fails to conceal his amusement. Of course Jamal would know.
“What do you want to do when you retire?”
Michael blinks, caught unaware. He’s done for the day, strolling leisurely back to the hotel. “When I retire?”
“Yeah,” Jamal continues. “When you don’t do this anymore. That’s what retirement means.”
Mihcael rolls his eyes fondly at a street camera. He knows Jamal's watching. “I haven't thought about it.” In truth, he’s always assumed he’d do this until…a mission gone wrong, or Control decides they have no use for him anymore. He doesn't know what else he’d do. He’s not sure Jamal would like that answer.
Jamal’s silent for a time. Michael thinks he’s dropped the subject. And then, “Think about it, please.”
Michael pauses. “Jamal?” the voice in his ear had sounded awfully sad.
“Think about it for me, please.”
Michael doesn't think he’s ever heard Jamal ask for anything. From him, at least.
“I mean, do you know how hard it is being in charge of you?”
A smile fights his way to his lips. “Because I keep misplacing your gadgets?”
“And getting lost. And injured. And being altogether troublesome. It makes me want to retire.”
Michael’s laughing as he collapses on the hotel bed. “Alright, alright, I get it.” He closes his eyes and tries to imagine a different life. A home in one place, a family maybe. Not having to look over his shoulder. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” Jamal says quietly. “Sleep well, Michael.”
==
Michael turns in files on Riovanni Kohen: possible contacts, travelling patterns, regular meeting points. From what Michael can gather, he’s a ruthless, cunning businessman running an international network of smugglers and dealers. And yet, he’s untouchable, with no paper trail or record against him. With his rivals mysteriously disappearing over the course of the past few months, he looks set to be in control over a massive portion of the European market. When one of their agents stationed in Budapest catches wind of a possible meeting between Kohen and a major supplier, offering an opportunity to apprehend him in the act, Control moves fast.
“I still don’t understand why they’re sending you,” Michael stresses again.
“So that you’re not flying blind?”
“I’ve never flown blind,” Michael says, nonplussed. “I’ve always had you in my ear.”
Jamal meets him with an undecipherable look. “Unchartered territory this time. Control thinks it’s best that we have a tech splinter unit to provide backup.”
“Control or you?” Michael questions, and when Jamal doesn’t reply, he grows angry. “This isn’t something to be taken lightly, Kohen is dangerous and一”
“I don’t owe you any explanations. Agent,” Jamal cuts in coldly, stunning Michael into silence. And Michael realises: god, I can’t stop him. I can stop a country from imploding and the world from ending but I can’t stop him. “You must think me a child.”
Michael senses that he’s overstepped. “Not a child,” he concurs. He forces himself to carefully package his fear and seal it away. “Just young.”
He leaves before Jamal can say a word, and spends the night in his apartment, unable to sleep. He’s gone into countless missions with perfect ease of mind because there was nothing to worry about. He has nothing to lose. And now一he does. It makes him unsettled and on edge and terrified.
Jamal doesn’t comment on the bags around his eyes the next day, but pulls back, looking stricken. The last thing he needs is to add Jamal's guilt to the list of his worries, so Michael offers a small smile, a peace offering, and settles in one corner of the plane, poring over the intel. Control has a relatively simple objective: capture. The meeting takes place at nineteen hundred hours, in an old factory on the outskirts of the city. They have a small squad monitoring the area even now, and Michael moves in to join them when he arrives. There’s a drop of relief when he skims the names of his team. Phonzy he’s worked with before, a veteran agent with invaluable experience and instincts. And then there’s Aleks, of whom he’s heard glowing reports, and Luis, one of the organisation’s top combatants. He can count on them.
And he can count on Jamal.
It’ll be fine, he tells himself. They’ll be fine.
==
They've installed cameras that feed back to Jamal's station, south side of the building. Michael pushes aside his worry, and focuses on the task ahead. A car pulls up three minutes prior to the scheduled meeting, and out steps Kohen.
“West wing,” Jamal informs them. “They’re armed.”
“Of course they are,” Aleks mutters. He’s situated farther than the rest of them as their sniper. “When do things ever go smoothly.”
Michael chews his lip. Something’s not right.
“Where’s the supplier,” Phonzy asks through the comms, voicing Michael’s concerns. “They should be here. Jamal?”
“Negative. Nothing in the vicinity.”
“Caught in traffic, perhaps,” Luis provides. Michael shakes his head at their combined muffled chuckles. Very unlikely.
They wait for fifteen minutes longer, watching Kohen get increasingly agitated. Michael shifts uncomfortably in his hiding position, unable to quell the suspicion rising in him. The rest feel it too, growing tension muting conversation.
“Heads up, they’re here,” Jamal announces urgently.
“Three vans of armed people is a lot for a meeting,” Phonzy hisses.
“Possible hostile encounter,” Michael surmises, abandoning his spot, “Aleks, cover. Phonzy, Luis, move in.”
They burst in amidst chaos and gunfire; the suppliers having apparently decided to do away with the drug lord. Michael’s no stranger to shit hitting the fan, but this situation couldn’t get further away from their favour.
“Visual?” he calls, ducking out of a rain of bullets. It’s hard to tell whose men are shooting, and who he needs to be shooting, and at this point he’s nearly past caring.
“No eyes on target,” Luis responds, returning fire. “I’ll take the west side. Phonzy一”
“East, got it.”
Which leaves the back to Michael. He disposes of the two men blocking his path quickly, and moves deeper into the factory. The mechanical room is dark and bereft of motion. He treads cautiously, keeping his ears trained for a stray sound.
“Michael!” comes Aleks’ sudden warning cry. “Target’s slipped round, he’s heading out the building.”
“Can you reach him?”
“Negative. “I’m too far.”
Michael curses, rounding on his heel and sprinting toward the entrance. they need Kohen for access to his networks, and if they lose him today, he’ll disappear. It’ll be months before he resurfaces, and they don’t have that kind of time.
“He’s coming my way.”
Michael freezes, dread filling him. “Jamal?”
“He’s coming my way,” Jamal repeats, voice strung tighter than a wire. “I can stop him.”
“Stand down,” Michael barks. “Jamal, that’s an order. Stand down!”
There’s a distinct click that follows the disconnection of a comm. Panic grips him, clawing at the base of his throat. Stop, he wants to scream. Stop. But there’s no answer on his comm, and all he can do is race toward the direction of their base station, hoping against hope that his handler doesn’t do anything stupid.
It feels like a century before he reaches the station. “Jamal!” Michael yells, uncaring that he’s giving away his position. He hears his heartbeat in his ears. “Jamal!”
“Here, I’m here.”
Michael moves toward the voice, and finds Jamal in the clearing. Kohen lies at his feet unconscious. It’s dim, but Michael can make out the faint appearance of a bruise on Jamal’s cheek.
“What happened,” he says flatly. His vision pounds, his hands are shaking. From fear, from anger, he can’t quite tell.
“Well, he didn’t expect to find me here, so it was fairly easy to stop him, and we had a bit of a scuffle but I managed to一” Jamal stops. “Michael?”
Michael stands motionless, unable to articulate the fury overtaking the adrenaline in his veins. He glares at Jamal, at the bruise on his face, at the idiot who has somehow changed the way he goes into missions and injected anxiety and protectiveness and affection where once there was nothing, and discovers that he has nothing to say. He turns and leaves, ignoring Jamal’s pleas for him to stop.
==
He puts up with Jamal’s acts of contrition for a week. The lights at traffic walks turn green the moment he steps close, and he receives emails announcing dramatic wins in lucky draws he never entered. Michael decides to make an appearance at the office before Jamal gets desperate and assigns him the winning lottery ticket.
The automatic doors to Jamal’s lab are open.
His handler is hunched over the keyboard, not typing anything. Michael spots the dark circles around his eyes, and feels a tug in his chest.
He sighs. “Jamal.”
“Now you know,” Jamal blurts out shakily, “now you know how it feels when I see you performing your missions as if you haven’t a thought to spare for yourself. Or for me.”
Michael blinks. Something clicks in his head.
“You think it’s easy, watching somebody you care for run about with a death wish?” Jamal’s shoulders are trembling, and he sounds small and miserable when he says, “I haven’t done anything you haven’t done. So, don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
Jamal peers at him balefully.
“Well, I’m not angry anymore, so you can stop apologising.”
“I thought you liked it when traffic ran smoothly for you.”
Michael hums. “You can keep doing that bit.” He shifts closer to Jamal, reaches out for him, and rests a hand on his face. The bruise is gone, but Michael still sees it in his mind. “If something had happened to you, I一” he stops, terrified of finishing the thought. “I think I understand now. I’m sorry it took so long.”
“I gave you a ring,” Jamal huffs. “I thought that was a big enough hint.”
Michael laughs, a little sheepish, a little delighted. “I’m never going to hear the end of that am I?” He leans in slowly and kisses his handler gently, tenderly. “I get it now.” He brushes a thumb across Jamal’s cheek, where a lovely flush is making its way. “What say you continue your abuse of power, and clear the reservations at your favourite restaurant so I can take you out?”
Jamal squints at him. “In another life, you would’ve made an excellent criminal.”
Michael grins in return, brimming with affection. “And you, an excellent agent.”