Chapter Text
Court had been staring down his pills, feeling like the shittiest, most pathetic man ever lived, when he got the call. An unknown number to his private cell that only three people knew the number of. And all three of them would’ve called from the number he’d memorized by heart.
He almost didn’t pick up. God, thinking back now the thought alone makes him want to hurl. That phone call haunted him for years in his nightmares, but he’d never have forgiven himself if he hadn’t picked up that night.
“Court?” A wavering, soft-spoken voice traveled through the phone speaker. Court stood up. The pills he’d been holding fell to the floor and rolled under the bed.
He’d recognize that voice even if he was half dead. It was the voice of one half of his heart.
Why was Ryland calling from this number?
“Ryland?” Court’s heart was in his throat. “Where are you calling from? Is Colt with you?”
“Court, we’re with our real daddy now.” Ryland continued on. Court could hear the tears flowing down his cheeks by the way his words trembled and the squeakiness of his hiccups.
“Ryland? Where are you?” Court was frantic now, pulling at his hair.
A shuffle of background noise. Colt, the other half of his heart, spoke next, “We love him so much. We are so happy to be home with him.”
It was like they were reading from a script, without any of their lovely exuberance, like how they were weeks ago when he’d met the twins for the first time. Court wanted to shoot the man who’d made them this way again.
“Colt, baby, tell me where you are. I’ll come right away.” Court pleaded.
“Please don’t come find us.”
The line died.
Court threw the chair out the window.
***
Happiness came to Court in waves. He came to expect the waves crashing into him. Rhythmic. Steady. Eternal. Most of the time the wave was weak, a light cold splash against his feet. Sometimes, rarely now, but once in a blue moon when he was blessed with a lull between missions and he got to treat himself to normalcy, it was so large it knocked him breathless off his feet and he wondered if he’d ever feel like that again. He’d grasp at the water, watching it drain through his fingers, wishing he could hold onto it for just a second longer.
High tide was euphoric, drowning in feelings he didn’t know he could still feel.
At low tide, he wondered if even the sea was running from him.
It had been low tide for Court for a long time.
Isn’t it funny? You still expect the wave to come back, even when it is low tide.
What do you do when it doesn’t?
***
a few weeks ago
Court had been dreaming one of the nicest dreams he’d had in a long time, walking along a calm beach with a few dogs, when he awoke to the buzzing of his private cell. There was only one person in the world who had the number to this cell.
“Fitz.” Court was curt. He wanted more sleep. It was a rare day off.
“Six, I need you to come to my office,” requested Fitz, the closest thing to family Court had.
Glancing at the clock, Court rubbed a hand over his face. It was 2am. “Right now? Business?”
“Your ride is outside.”
Sure enough, Court could see a helicopter waiting for him on the helipad of the building over from where he’s squatting.
Court yawned. He barely got any sleep, which was a shame because he found a really great corner to curl up in. Office buildings were easy to get into. The security were just for show and carried no weapons. Half the time, as long as you walk confidently enough, you can just walk in through the front door as a janitor or even one of the security details. The best part was the buildings had air-conditioning, lots of snacks, coffee, and sometimes even pillows and sleeping pods.
It had been awhile since Court got to sleep on a soft surface. He stared longingly at the pillow on the couch he’d been laying on.
Well, duty calls.
***
Fitz’s office was plain. Minimalist. It held the essentials. Bland. Unidentifying.
“Sit.” Fitz waved to one of the arm chairs in front of him.
Court raised his eyebrows. This was not business.
“Sit down, Six.” It was a command, not a request. Half-business, then.
Court sank into the minimally plush chairs. It was still one of the softest things he’d sat on in a few weeks. He tapped a finger on the arms. Wary of anything out of the ordinary, Court was impatient for Fitz to get to the point.
“I need a favor.”
Court stood up.
“Sit down, Court.” Court sat down.
Favors were bad news. Favors usually meant the task wasn’t documentable, and there were usually no guarantees of any of the carry-throughs. Not that there usually were for those like Sierra Six. However, the official jobs had just a smidge more validity than favors. Even if the favor was for Fitz, it was risky.
Court didn’t want to do it.
But Fitz was Fitz. So Court listened all the way through, as a courtesy to their decade-long relationship. Then, he stood up again, zipping up his jacket to leave.
“Courtland, please. There’s no one else I trust.”
Court stopped with one hand on the doorknob. Fitz never said please, not even when he was asking him to risk his life to assassinate world leaders or set off bombs. Fitz may have gotten him out of that shithole prison into this hellscape of a life, and Court may have had Fitz in his life for longer than without. At the end of the day, Fitz was still Sierra Six’s handler. Sierra Six’s handler did not ask Sierra Six to do anything; he ordered.
This was not Fitz asking Sierra Six for a favor. This was Fitz asking Court for a favor. An unusual favor.
Closing his eyes and cursing his damn heart, Court turned around. “Can’t even afford babysitter salaries these days?”
Fitz rolled his eyes. The old coot already knew Court wouldn’t deny him now.
The job would be for ten days, while Fitz was on a mission in Europe. He wanted Court to go to his San Francisco townhouse and babysit his six-years old twin nephews, who he’d recently gotten custody of. Their mother, Fitz’s half-sister, passed away years ago during childbirth. Yet, the kids hadn’t been with Fitz long, only three weeks. Why did he get custody only recently?
The boys went to Fitz after their dad lost custody for domestic violence.
That was the linchpin. Fitz didn’t go into the details of the abuse. He didn’t need to.
“You know the business we’re in, Six.” Yes, Court did know. Unfortunately. “We’d had some reports of strange activities near a few of my properties. Not the one they’re at, but I’m not taking chances.”
Court sighed. “I don’t know how to take care of people, Fitz. I end lives, not raise them. You know that, more than anyone.” He protested, more for the sake of arguing than nothing else. Court liked to think he had a reputation to keep.
“They have a nanny who will take care of their basic needs. All you need to do is make sure they don’t get hurt.”
To be honest, Court didn’t remember the last time he talked to a child. Maybe once or twice during a mission. But holding a full conversation? Probably not since Court was a child himself. He told Fitz as much.
“You don’t need to entertain them. You just need to keep them safe. That’s all I ask, Court.” Fitz peered up at him, head full of white hair with crow’s feet decorating his eyes. He looked so different from when they first met in that prison interrogation room, much wiser and sage. At the same time, he looked exactly the same with that knowing twinkle in his eyes, like he knew all of Court’s hopes and dreams and regrets and self-loathing.
Because he did know. He was the closest thing to family Court had.
Fitz nodded, satisfied by what he saw in Court’s expression. “Your flight leaves in 30 minutes.”
***
Court used to sneak out to the beach late at night, when his dad was too shitface drunk, after beating Court until the dinner in his stomach was on the floor, to notice the squeak in the door hinge he never got sober enough to fix.
There was a spot behind a cluster of rocks he’d sit at. In the midst of those rocks, the static of the waves crashing against the rock helped him feel cocooned away from everything. He’d sit there and watch cargo ships slowly dip over the horizon.
He loved when the sky was clear and the moon watched over him. Under the gentle glow, he could pretend there was someone watching the sea with him. Pretend that his ribs didn’t ache. Pretend that his lungs didn’t burn.
Pretend he was normal.
Every night, under the moon, Court wished he could become a fish, so he wouldn’t drown, so he could join a school of other fish, so he could swim wherever he wanted.
Court didn’t have the luxury to watch the ocean all night long anymore, but in some ways he did become a fish.
He was a great white shark at the bottom of the ocean. He swam and swam. But there were never any other fishes around.
***
Dressed in a gray suit that Fitz had so kindly provided, along with a suitcase of additional clothing, toiletries, two pistols, and a few other basic tools, Court walked into the living room of a modern Victorian townhouse in the heart of San Francisco.
The walls were painted a stylish beige. Delicate taupe drapes hung on the bay windows. In the middle sat a small white couch, filled with decorative blue pillows, and two matching light-gray armchairs. Generic decorative books and a vase of flowers sat on a glass coffee table in between them. A tasteful white and blue floral carpet covers the floor. Next to the couch stood an oak side table with a white square lamp. On one wall hung a painting of a house on a beach with three dogs, a mother and two pups playing in the water. On the other, a painting of a wolf sitting alone in the midst of a forest, hung above the fireplace.
It was a gorgeous, expensive living room. Ordinary. Unassuming. Unidentifying.
Extremely unsafe.
Being on the first floor, the bay window was too exposed. The flimsy gauze drapes were purely decorative and did nothing for limiting visibility from nefarious outside eyes. The couch, armchairs, and coffee table arrangement, while aesthetically pleasing, do not maximize cover from gunfire.
Noticing him scanning the room with judgment clear on his face, the nanny, Ruth, who had let him in, quickly offered, “Sir Fitzroy hasn’t redecorated the townhouse to accommodate the kids, since this is only temporary while the main house is under preparations."
Court blinked. Right. He was here for the kids.
They weren’t in the living room, but perhaps they were in their rooms.
Ruth continued the tour of the three-story townhouse. Aside from the living room, the first floor also held a bathroom (also tastefully decorated with baby blue hand towels and floral diffusers), a kitchen (equipped with brand new designer brand appliances), and dining room (outfitted with a large oak dining table with a vase of dried flowers in the middle). The second floor held a master bedroom, a bathroom, and an office. The third floor had three guest rooms (one for the twins, one for Ruth, and one for him) and two bathrooms. Ruth let him look into each room to survey the exposed entry points. He had his work cut out for him for keeping an eye on intruders.
It was only at the end of the tour that he realized he did not catch a single glimpse of the twins.
***
It had been two days and Court still had not seen the twins.
After the first night, and he didn’t see a single sign of the twins despite making multiple rounds around the house, he’d checked in with Ruth. She hadn’t thought anything was amiss. She had been feeding and putting the boys to sleep as usual. Sure, they were quiet and withdrawn, but they had always been since they were here.
Well, at least they were alive and unharmed. That was his actual mission. Nothing more.
So what if they didn’t want to meet him?
Court pretended his heart didn’t twinge at the thought.
Unfortunately for the boys, his job of ensuring they were safe did require them to meet. Court decided that one day was enough of a grace period and began scouring the entire townhouse. Starting from the living room, he left no nook or cranny uncovered. He looked behind the couch, under the table, under the couch, but there were no signs of the twins. He checked every cabinet, including the one under the sink as well as the top most ones the boys would’ve had to do some impressive gymnastic to climb into. He even checked inside the fridge (his heart settling back down from his throat to see an empty freezer compartment).
Next floor.
Keeping his footsteps as light as when he broke into the Kremlin, he ascended the stairs to check the master bedroom. Just as his head peeked over the landing, he sensed more than heard someone frantically sprinting up the stairs to the next floor. Following his instincts, he skipped searching the master bedroom and continued up to the third floor.
Quiet as a mouse, he opened the first door to his right, the one belonging to the twins. The door swept open to an empty room. The room held two neat, navy blue twin beds, one on each side of the wall, and a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe on the third.
Court’s eyes zeroed in on the gentle flapping of one corner of the comforter that hung over the side of the bed to his right. He creeped toward it, and slowly got on his knees.
For ten years, Court had worked as Sierra Six. When he’d started out, his heart would crack at every scene, and at night their faulting glass eyes interrogated him for every death and harm he wrought. Over the years, he’d seen unparalleled carnage, some of which was caused by himself, the beast that he was. He’d seen corpses, mutilated so far beyond recognition as to be human. He’d seen men and women tortured into simulacra of sentience. He’d seen desolation beyond imagination, eating from the eyes of dying husks. He knew terror like a ghostly twin that echoed his footsteps from dawn until dusk, chasing him into his nightmares. Each time that he crawled out from the depth of hell filled the crack with cement and his heart would ache a little less the next time, until he hadn’t felt much anymore.
The sight before Court shattered his stone heart into a thousand pieces.
Two pools of glowing wide eyes stared at him from the darkness underneath the bed. Court was reminded of this painting he’d seen once of a pair of black cats underneath a sofa. But instead of calm, curious eyes, he found glimmering, terrified eyes belonging to twin boys huddled in the corner furthest away from him, hugging each other tightly.
They were visibly trembling.
“Hello-“ As soon the word left his mouth, one of the twins whimpered and scrabbled backward further into the corner. The harsh sound cut through Court’s heart, leaving the sting of panic lingering in the air.
Court raised a hand in what he hoped to be a calming gesture, only for both of the twins to flinch in a manner that was all too familiar to Court.
Yelling, screaming, water everywhere, around him, inside of him, everything hurts, bruises, blood, blood everywhere, around him inside of him, screaming, sirens-
A whimper fished him out of his nightmares.
“It’s okay,” Court reassured, ignoring the twin flinches. He kept his tone even, low, and gentle. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m friends with your Uncle Fitz. He sent me to protect you. You can call me Six.”
The twin didn’t move even by the time he finished introducing himself.
“You can come out from under there. It must be uncomfortable.” Court tried a different strategy, to no success.
At a loss, he sat back on his haunches, resting his hands on his knees. He noted the way their eyes track his hands. The way they flicker between them and his face, searching for something.
Court knew what they were looking for.
Fists didn’t hurt less when you see it coming, but human instinct forced you to pay attention anyways. To look for any subtle turn of the mouth or slight twitch in the brows. To listen for any hint of the oncoming temper that came and went like the storm. To tense your muscles for impact, because flinching out of the way only ever made things worse. To memorize the sharp stings and blossoming aches, because then the next one wouldn’t surprise you.
As if knowing the pain is coming made it more normal, because you didn’t know what to do if it wasn’t.
For the first time in a decade, Court felt hot tears gather around his eyes and sourness pinch at the bridge of his nose. The shaky breaths he forced down his lungs kept the memories at bay, but the pair of frightened eyes watching him from the dark tightened a noose around his neck until the stone heart in his throat choked him.
He couldn’t be here.
Court dashed out of the room, surprised, high-pitched shrieks rang out from the room, chasing him down the stairs—accusatory, condemning, reproachful—and feeding the water hemlock that strangled his organs and dug poisonous roots into his mind.
***
A useless beast.
That was what Court’s father used to call him, as he ranted about one grievance or another, waving around a bottle of beer, dozens more empty bottles laid at his feet.
Court didn’t pay it much mind. The old man’s rancid diatribes range from inane complaints about being cut off in traffic to ill-formed tirades about politics. Nothing the man said was true.
Court knew that. That was why, when Fitz offered him a chance to prove himself, to prove his father wrong, he didn’t even hesitate.
It wasn’t until a few years into his tenure as Sierra Six that he realized his father was right all along.
When he watched dozens of hostages decimated into dust, without a single body for their families– when he held in his own bare hands the heart of a little girl, blasted open in the crossfire– when he looked down on the bullet hole in the head of the man he was supposed to save– when he closed his eyes to sleep and all he could see was the mountain of blood-covered bodies underneath him, Court knew as surely as the sea is wet that he was only ever a useless monstrous beast.
Court used to stand on the beach, letting waves soak his jeans. He imagined the tides washed away whatever was wrong with him, so his dad would finally stop, even if he couldn’t love him.
But of course, even the almighty sea could not wash away his core being. The best it could do was drag him under into the deep dark depths, where all the other sea monsters belong.
***
Court asked Ruth to check on the twins after he rushed out. She reassured him that they were wary of strangers, and they would come around to him.
He wasn’t sure it was so simple.
That night, after the twins went to sleep—after packaging everything back into the neat little box and stuffing it into a chest and locking it and throwing the chest in the ocean—Court patrolled the townhouse. As he came to the twins’ room, he hesitated. He didn’t want to scare them, but he should check in on them still, just in case.
They should be asleep anyways. It should be harmless. Cautiously, Court pushed the door open.
The door hinge made no sound, and the floorboards did not squeak. The only sounds he heard were the frantic pitter-patter of tiny barefeet racing across the room.
The door swung open to an empty room.
Court eyed the wardrobe, with its door opened with a finger-width slit that wasn’t there earlier that morning.
He left for the next room. He wasn’t sure he could hold it together if he saw those faces stare back at him in the same way again. They didn’t need a monster plaguing their nightmares anyways.
Every day after that, when he walked around the townhouse, he broadcasted his footsteps, though silencing them would serve him better against potential intruders. As soon as he entered a room, the twins would scatter, either to hide in some ill-advised crevice in the room or to an adjacent room.
Court let them be, even as every encounter sliced another paper-cut into his heart.
In this manner, Court and the twins skirted around each other in the three story townhouse, with Ruth as the go-between, reassuring Court that the twins were in perfect physical health.
He didn’t see the twins face to face until the third day.
He didn’t even seek them out. It was midday, and he was looking for Ruth to ask about the housekeeper’s schedule. Walking into the kitchen, where she should be preparing the twins’ lunches, he stopped short at the unexpected sight of twin blond boys sitting at the table.
Twin pairs of sky blue eyes turned toward him, only to drop down immediately to the bowls of soup in front of them. Bone-thin little hands quietly lowered their spoons, not even making a clink against the bowls.
“Hello,” Court greeted them, injecting as much warmth as he could muster.
The twins did not move a muscle, their spoons still resting in the bowls.
“Where’s Ruth?” A small part of Court hoped that having some innocuous and amicable interactions would ease the twins’ distrust and fear of him.
Without lifting his eyes to look at Court, one of the twins—Court was unsure which one, even though one sported a Spiderman shirt and the other a plain yellow shirt, since he didn’t know which twin put on which shirt to begin with—timidly pointed to the backdoor that led to a small garden.
Court thanked him and left through the door. He did not receive a reply, nor any other sign of acknowledgment. He knew he wouldn’t get one, but he still felt disappointment stinging his heart.
Court pointedly ignored the snide whispers in his mind glibly reminding him that even children thought he was a monster to hide from. He’d gotten good at ignoring them over the years.