Chapter Text
The first thing that chief saw in front of her when her call was received, were gray walls with sporadic splashes of colour, and marker lines which resembled a child's attempts at drawing houses, human figures and animals, along with a few designs drawn as well, one with a diagonal cutting through a square and every mini triangle in it had a dot, done in succession. The paint in contrast seemed to just be applied for the sake of it, with no wider thought behind it as well as pink and white hand prints at the furthermost side on the left.
"If you're done staring at my walls, mind telling me what I owe the pleasure of this call to?"
Her attention finally shifted to the person she had called and was supposed to talk to, who had asked her question without even bothering to look at her. She was currently standing at her bedside table, which housed a couple of books, one of which was in her hand and she was currently flipping through it.
"Apologies, your peculiar choice of wall decoration just distracted me"
She finally turned towards her, "Oh, the real artists are currently out, I would introduce you to them, but I don't think their caregiver would be happy with that"
She cleared her throat, not wanting to breach the subject or think about how carlotta valdez was probably just a few feet away.
Instead she changed the subject to what she was here for.
"I'm sure you know why I'm calling, agents zack and ivy must have told you, even though I specifically told them not to" she sounded resigned saying the last part, she'd expected them to not follow her orders on this and frankly at this point she couldn't bring herself to care.
Carmen looked at her like she'd said something amusing, "hearing zack and ivy being referred to as 'agents' feels so weird, I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to it"
She put the book down with the rest, and spoke as she did it, "yes, they did tell me, something about you needing my help catching a couple operatives who, despite all the data shadowsan and I shared, are still evading capture, and your agents haven't been able to catch them"
"Actually, they're the operatives we don't have much data about, they're part of the last class of VILE graduates"
The last graduating class had been by far, the most difficult to apprehend, ever since they'd arrested the faculty, they'd been able to get into their systems and access more information on the active operatives, but that hadn't proved very helpful, words on a screen could only tell you so much, those operatives hadn't been on too many missions, and neither carmen nor shadowsan, had anything to tell about them except for two of them and hence, they had proven to be hard to catch.
"How many are there? Seems like it's the same ones"
"It is, there are 3, but we only know the name of one, the zookeeper, does that ring a bell?"
"No, other than two I don't know any other operatives of the last graduating class, any idea on the others?"
"we haven't been able to get a good look at the other two, so we haven't been able to pinpoint who they are"
"It's a very on the nose codename, Let me guess, his speciality is that he's good with animals"
"Considering he uses trained animals to assist him, yes, it's very on the nose"
"Almost all codenames are"
She arched an eyebrow at her, "wasn't your codename black sheep?"
Carmen hadn't been listening with much attention until that moment, a clear look of surprise appeared on her face, she looked up at her, incredulous "how do you know that?"
"The, uh, VILE logs had your file"
Surprise gave way to understanding and she turned her gaze away from her,"right, and I said almost, not all codenames are on the nose but most are"
"Anyways", she started, bringing the conversation back to the topic on hand, "these three always strike together, crime net has pinpointed their next location but if this time is gonna be like all the other times, which it probably is, they'll give my agents the slip again"
She let the unspoken question rest in the air, not bothering to spell out the rest.
"You want me to help you" It wasn't a question but a statement, which was correct. But she looked at her incredulously and her tone edged on disbelieving, which she didn't quite get why.
"You are back in the game now" she stated matter of factly.
"Let me rephrase that, you want me to take on 3 operatives who I've never faced all on my own?"
"You'll have the agents on your side this time, I would have considered asking shadowsan but I believe he's retired now, unless he'd be willing to help out" a third person had occurred to her while she'd been contemplating, but not only did she not know whether he would help or not, it's not like she had anyway of reaching him anyway and even without that, she didn't think carmen would be okay with that.
"No offence, but your agents can't hold their own against one VILE operative, let alone three, I would be too busy making sure they don't get hurt, rather than them being of any help to me"
"That was before we started working on the intel you provided us with, we're not as clueless anymore"
"You sure?, I mean I was surrounded by all your operatives in Sweden and I still got away, two of them did manage to catch shadowsan by surprise once and knock him out but he returned the favour as soon as he woke up and gray's mind was scrambled and he still beat all your operatives and got away from the facility, I don't think simple information is magically gonna make you better"
Chief had planned to retort the first point with how carmen had been hit with the stun gun and nearly died so it wasn't nothing, but her last point took her by surprise.
"You know about that one?"
"About the fact that gray wiped the floor with your agents?, yeah" of course, she did, zack and ivy must have told her, yeah, this was so not helping her case.
If she hadn't been feeling so embarrassed she might have noticed the look carmen was giving her after, as if she was waiting for her to elaborate on what gray had been doing in ACME custody in the first place.
"Okay, you don't have faith in my agents, who else do you suppose could help you? Do you want to just work with your old team?" Instead, she obliviously proceeded with the conversation.
Carmen gave her a look of annoyance before visibly signing "Yes, with the addition of one"
Chief looked at her questioningly, who else could she ask for?She got along with agent Argent, and recently agent Devineaux so maybe one of them.
"Gray, though I'll have to ask him"
If chief had been drinking something, she would have choked on it like characters on TV when they heard something like what carmen had just said.
"Calloway?"
"Yeah" she answered as if what she was suggesting was the most normal thing in the world.
"Why?, you seem surprised"
"I just, thought you two weren't in touch with each other, calloway pretty much said that he didn't plan to be the last time I saw him"
"We reconnected a while ago" she replied, briskly.
She stayed quiet for a bit as carmen took her phone, and presumably, started texting the person she'd proposed to be her accomplice, before speaking again.
"Do you think he'll help?"
"He will, if I ask him"
"How can you be sure of that?" She tried to keep her voice even but her uncertainty must have slipped through, since she replied.
"I know him, that's how"
"So you know where he is?"
"Yes, Australia"
A beat of silence followed
"Thought you wouldn't tell me"
"Not much point in hiding it"
Initially, chief had been surprised that carmen had brought up calloway or 'gray' as she called him so nonchalantly after what had happened in Casablanca, which to her knowledge had been the last time she'd seen him, she knew for a fact that she hadn't gone to see him in the hospital, it hadn't occurred to her that maybe they had met up again since.
Like she said, Calloway had seemed adamant, (though admittedly sad) about the entire thing, it seemed that resolve hadn't lasted.
She didn't think she'd ever see him again, just like she'd told him, as long as he stayed away from stealing, there wasn't any reason for their paths to cross again, and she wasn't sure how she felt about seeing him again.
Saying it like that made it seem like they had some sort of history, and she supposed since the person who did was actually suggesting it and by the way she was acting was happy about it, her feelings didn't really matter.
Carmen had started typing while she'd been thinking, and her gaze continued to be fixed on her phone some time after, not knowing what to say, and not sure she should interrupt considering how focused carmen seemed at whatever she was doing, she just stood there, waiting, shifting from one foot to the other, glancing around.
There was a clock on the opposite wall, a closet on the other side of the room, along with a table and a matching chair, presumably a study table but by the looks of it, it hadn't been used much. Actually the room barely looked inhabited, it lacked personal touch and gave the impression that the inhabitant was residing there temporarily.
She knew the room was a part of the wider orphanage from the report agent Argent had given her, she'd never admit it but she'd read that report more times than she could count, she supposed guilt was a part of it, but she couldn't count that as the only reason, carlotta valdez was a mystery to her, a stranger she knew nothing about, and yet she was connected with her in the worst way that any two people could have been connected.
She'd wondered how carmen had been living here, not least of all because of how much of an enigma she still was to her.
"I didn't realise how striking my room was, I've always thought it looked plain since I barely decorated it, but I guess I was worried about nothing"
Finished with whatever she had been doing, carmen finally spoke up, chief turned to her, "you were on your phone, you seemed occupied and I didn't wanna interrupt you"
"Thanks, I guess, gray agreed by the way"
She looked at her in confusion, she didn't have on hand information about time zones but she knew enough to question what carmen said.
"Isn't the time difference between Buenos Aires and Sydney, Australia over 10 hours?"
"14 hours, to be exact"
She turned to look at the clock behind her, it was around 3:00 pm, so it should have been around 5:00 am in Sydney, not a ridiculous time to be up at but how did carmen know he'd be awake then.
"And he was awake"
"Wouldn't have texted him if he wasn't"
She didn't bother to ask how she knew, considering everything she supposed it wasn't ludicrous that they knew each other's sleeping schedules.
Especially considering how smitten calloway was he probably would have told her everything she asked, though she supposed it was the same the other way around as well, that nickname certainly seemed to suggest so.
Carmen didn't bother to continue talking to her, she retreated to viewing her phone and typing, which chief had to admit was getting on her nerves, sure it's not like they were best buddies or something but surely she could give her the basic decency of paying attention while they were in the middle of a conversation.
She was going to voice said annoyances when she saw a smile come over her. Not a small, barely visible one but a full unrestrained one.
In the back of her mind, it occurred to her that she'd never seen her look so happy, it felt....weird, she'd seen her in vulnerable positions before, the Stockholm incident and of course, the last time she'd seen her in person, but she'd never seen her just be, happy.
And right now, that happiness came from talking to her former partner in crime, funny, she thought, the last time she'd seen her, she was crying over him thinking she'd killed him, time was funny like that. You never can tell what might or might not happen.
Though she was still rather curious about them, when she'd first asked calloway how he was related to the superthief, her initial impression had been that he was a fool and carmen had taken advantage of him.
That was before he'd (regrettably) escaped them and ended up in jail, and chase had encountered carmen trying (at the time they'd thought she had been the one) to break him out of jail.
Which had thrown a wrench in that line of thinking cause had carmen only been interested in using him, why was she there? How did she even know that he got arrested? Even when they had cleared the air for a while, he'd been the one thing that didn't fit into the puzzle, no matter what way they tried to fit him in, now she had a clearer idea, though it still lacked a lot of details.
She'd revised her theory when chase had reported back after failing to apprehend calloway, and wondered what the red rouges relationship with the electrician was.
Her mind had wandered, and she wouldn't lie, she had a theory that these two were friendlier than friends, and frankly, she had plenty of evidence for the same. Calloway asking her out for coffee, twice, and her actually going along with it, especially the second time when she could have just left and not bother with explaining or fulfilling her promise, the fact that she actually came to get him out of jail with seemingly no prior connection, that in itself was plenty of evidence but then calloway had reached out in order to get the real her back and had even offered to go to prison in exchange.
Sandiego crying over him when she thought she'd killed him was just the cherry on top, god, this really was like a drama.
She'd even tried to help those two by offering to give calloway sandiego's contact info but he'd refused saying she didn't need him complicating her life, now, a few years later they're so close they know each other's sleep schedules.
As much as she still didn't know about their relationship, she'd figured a lot out herself and filled in the blanks herself once VILE had been captured. She knew they had met at the academy, that they had been friends, she knew that his time as a 'civilian' wasn't a sleeper agent thing or that VILE operatives could not in fact cheat their lie detectors, VILE just had a policy of brainwashing agents who got caught to maintain secrecy, which, at the very least, helped make some sense of the puzzle that was their relationship.
She still didn't know a lot but she couldn't help but wonder if their reacquaintance might have led to something more if it hadn't already.
She felt a bit silly wondering about something so trivial and utterly unrelated to her, it wasn't her place to be thinking about stuff like this but she didn't think it was ridiculous for her to wonder, they liked each other when they weren't in contact, were they together now? Carmen had said that they'd reconnected a while ago so there had certainly been enough time for something to happen.
And considering that carmen seemed to have completely forgotten that she was in the room while talking to him, that certainly gave "totally into your boyfriend" vibes to her.
Carmen might've been a mind reader cause she chose that moment to reacknowledge her presence.
"Sorry for ignoring you, I got a bit side tracked"
"Yeah, I can see that" she whispered under her breath
If carmen noticed anything which she probably did, she didn't say anything.
"Well this has gone on long enough and I'm sure you have better things to do than talk to me, just tell me the location and the time by which I should be at the heist", she made a thoughtful expression before continuing "or not, zack and ivy will tell me anyway and it's not like I can't figure it out on my own"
She signed, her annoyance apparent, "The capers in Germany, I'll send you the exact co-ordinates later"
"Okay, thanks" she turned away from her again, and a part of her wanted to ask her, at the very least make some kind of insinuation just to see her reaction, she opened her mouth and then closed it, deciding against it.
This wasn't the time neither was it appropriate, they hadn't even started working together and she wasn't about to squander whatever Good will she had procured plus it's not like she could put together the words to ask about it anyway.
"And while we're on the subject, loosen up on zack and ivy would you? I can barely find the time to talk to them"
"Crime doesn't take a break"
"No, but that doesn't mean you're gonna overwork them, do you or do you not have other agents you can use?"
She signed, feeling an incoming headache "fine, I'll lessen their workload"
"Thanks" she said, looking all too pleased with herself, as if she hadn't just intervened in ACMEs business and wouldn't have ever let them get between hers, still chief pushed the thought away, she couldn't let their partnership end before it started.
Sensing that it was time for her to sign off she heard carmen speak once more before the scene in front of her changed to her own home again.
"So I guess I'll see you in Germany then"