Chapter Text
Hood was throwing a tantrum– sorry; releasing the built up frustration on an inanimate object in a healthy, and controlled way that had no right to negatively impact him, or his crew of highly traumatized by both the system, as well as their upbringing employees.
Great idea. Rodney cried over a broken mug last week, but who cares about that little bitch, right? Or about the fact that everyone is waiting in the meeting room just a few metres away from the boss's office for said boss to finally green light them so they can go and make that god forsaken weapons exchange at the docks.
Cecil looks down at his wrist watch– it's digital, because even though he likes the aesthetic of a regular one, he also likes to be accurate to a second, and he's really fucking bad at reading them.
They are ten minutes late.
Whatever.
Make a band of thugs carrying boxes of glocks, ammunition, tear gas canisters, and explosives wait like it's a milk delivery.
A piece of wood flies out and hits him in the foot.
It doesn't hurt, and that fact saddens him because if it did hurt maybe he could take it to the higher management, but then he remembers; there is no higher management.
Just this guy.
Breaking a chair.
Now he's ripping off a leg from it– great, also how the fuck-? It's walnut, and last time Cecil checked Hood didn't have a hydraulic press equipped into his gloves.
It was a good chair.
Very expensive. Pablo stole it from some rich lady's dump a couple of weeks ago. He will be devastated…
Cecil sighs, and sneakily gets out his cellphone. He presses the record button with surprising ease.
The Tantrum folder was growing in size day by day.
He sends a short clip to Pablo on their private chat describing it as; the boss is being silly again, accompanied by a screaming cat emoji. He smiles a bit seeing that Pabs was already typing back, probably grieving the loss of the chair.
A growl hits his ear, he sighs, looking up in fake concern for his own well being. Red Hood stopped destroying the room and instead he stands before him ready to complain about Cecil ignoring his ass.
There are truly not enough curse words in the English language sometimes. Good thing that he's a polyglot. Bad thing that he can't show off that ability now, not externally at least.
Internally? He's working on his Spanish.
He looks Hood up and down.
Sometimes he wishes he was still religious. That he hadn't revoked his faith in God back when he was choking his childhood town's priest to death.
Just so he could pray for this motherfucker before him.
But that's a silly thought, he knows that because sometimes he also wishes that he was caught trying to cross into the British border.
In these dreams he's brought before the Queen of England's knees, and as she points him towards the prison with her glorious strap on to be ass fucked behind the bars for eternity, he briefly feels strapped of all sin.
His mind, and its desires cannot be trusted, therefore he doesn't voice them, because if he did the boss would probably send him to a psyche unit, or worse– cut his paycheck in half for causing him more emotional distress in this job than necessary.
Cecil learned his lesson after mentioning Bruce Wayne's saggy white saviour balls. Bringing into this the cousin fucking dinosaur tits of the elite will probably result in an even worse reaction, not to mention sour looks of his colleagues that do not understand that if you're a firm believer of the phrase; fuck the rich– that more often than not you have to actually mean it to its fullest definition.
"We're gonna be late for the weapons deal at the docks–" he says in a flattest tone he can possibly muster, and then he adds; "… boss" just to soothe the kid.
Because Red Hood was a child. Not in acting like one kind of way, but in a full– not old enough to drink– way.
Was Cecil the only one that fucking noticed? Well, except for Pablo, but Pablo is a dad so he would know.
Cecil's been working with Hood for about two months, and Hood's been around for about four now, so not so long, but he guessed he was one of the more trusted employees since Red usually put up with his snarky personality, mostly turning a blind eye on it, and calling him into his office for no good reason almost every-fucking-day.
He wasn't sure how he gained that level of trust, but it might have to do with the way he was hired. Regardless of Hood's tough exterior, he did care for the locals, especially the ones in the poorer district, especially kids. Some crimes were inexcusable, so it was no wonder Cecil was asked to join the gang after Hood found him in the middle of choking a sex offender with a plastic bag after his grocery shopping trip turned into running towards the muffled screaming coming from a back alley.
Anyway it went something like this; suddenly out of nowhere this random weirdly dressed guy comes out and they are kicking at the dude's kneecaps together. Before he knew it he was offered a job, and Cecil was taught to never look a gifted horse in the mouth.
Until he realized the horse was still a teenager.
The signs were there from the beginning, in the way Hood huffed sometimes like an annoyed kitten, in the way he would straighten himself up to be the biggest in the room and– God; in the way he called everyone kid.
Cecil in his long life never saw a man with so much bottled up anger you could almost feel the teenage angst spilling out.
He had no idea why the other guys were afraid of him, maybe they still cared about bullshit called self preservation and saw how Hood's fingers would sometimes twitch against the trigger. Cecil wasn't buying it, sure he saw Hood shoot his own men or land a punch or two but it was always for a reason, for a pretty nasty reason. Hood was sensitive when it came to his rules and paranoid of betrayal, but as long as you weren't a piece of shit he wouldn't hurt you, just bark a little until your body shivered and he could see that glint of realization in your eye that said shit I fucked up. It was pretty hard to fake it when Cecil's brain was going; that's just a little guy! every time his boss was around.
Maybe he had a soft spot, okay? He knew kids like him, he was a little brother once to someone with a similar attitude. Too tall for his age, angry with a bleeding heart that burned like a ceasefire when he saw how others were treated. That fire didn't end well for him, but at least his brother didn't start wearing kevlar and beating up criminals in the night, he just died drunk in a creek, and honestly Cecil could sometimes smell the desire to go out in a similar way on Hood. It wasn't just seeking adrenaline like other's seemed to think; it was being passively suicidal.
Cecil wouldn't have it. He had bills to pay therefore he had to keep his boss alive.
"Why haven't you told me sooner?"
Because I was psycho analyzing you, you fucking bastard; which you can't spell without saying the word anal by the way, but if he's theory about Hood's age was correct he probably shouldn't mention it.
Cecil wordlessly points at the very pointy piece of wood Hood is still holding in his hand.
The man looks down, and after a second drops it pretending he doesn't feel any kind of shame for his outburst.
Like in preschool…
The weapons exchange goes smoothly only with a fair bit of arguing, and one broken nose.
Cecil stands next to Pablo now watching Hood check the boxes for any unwanted gadgets, like bugs or trackers from a distance.
"He's so paranoid." His friend comments. Cecil shrugs, he agrees with the statement, but recently Batman had been onto their tail so they should be careful.
"Probably for a good reason."
They watch as the boss picks up a grenade and stares at it like he's considering pulling out the safety clip. He shakes it and tosses it aside to the displeasure of Rodney who's there to help organize everything.
Pablo leans forward to rest against the reeling. They are on the upper floor of the warehouse, it's only two of them, and no one from the lower section is looking at them so Cecil feels confident enough to let the other man touch his shoulder as they speak.
He looks a bit tired today. Pabs's under eyes are naturally darker than the rest of his skin, but today his eyes are a bit puffy, and red, so the discoloration looks like he hasn't slept for a while instead of being just his natural characteristic.
"His voice modulator malfunctioned yesterday." Pabs whispers.
Cecil's eyes grow wide.
"You heard him?" He whispers back, glad that they don't have anyone with super hearing in the room.
"Yes–"
"And how did he sound?"
"Like someone that tries real hard to go down an octave or two to seem more mature."
"… Three kids in a trench coat, and one is a girl."
"What?" Pabs laughs, and that sound has no right to make Cecil feel so much warmth. "No– silly."
You never know; It's Gotham, there's always a possibility.
"He didn't notice for a good few minutes, but then… his voice cracked, you know? he sounded– I don't know; how I used to sound in college. That awkward phase when you think everything in your body has settled, but then something catches you off guard anyway. He left the room quickly after that. One of the girls laughed when it happened, and I think that's why he's been acting so agitated today."
Cecil licks his lips continuing to watch what unfolds underneath them.
Red found a random rubber ball in one of the crates– it's green with sparkly glitter inside– one of these cheap ones you can get from a bubblegum machine. He starts bouncing it up and down, up and down, then tosses it Rodney's way like he's expecting the poor man to toss it back.
"That would explain why he's so insistent on wearing that helmet too, right? I mean I know it's because we're criminals and all, but a domino seems to work well enough for everyone else, right?–" Cecil starts. Come to think of it most of the Gotham villains are unmasked, but Hood isn't a villain, not in Cecil's book at least. He wouldn't work for a villain.
The gang did a lot of good even within such a short time of existing. They modified the drug trade, now it's less dangerous, and harder for minors to access.
Red probably had a history of drug abuse in the family. Cecil's sure of it. He's weird about alcohol too, every time he brings a pack for the team to drink he stays out of it. Others think it's because of the mask, but Cecil saw him drink tea through a straw before. It's probably uncomfortable, and looks extremely awkward, but it's manageable!
Still… there's a whiskey in his office, one that seems to get more empty as weeks go by, so maybe he just doesn't like drinking around others– which is slightly concerning– or maybe he's just afraid he'd say something stupid like; hey I bought this from a gas station and the guy didn't even ask me for my fake ID!
Yeah– that's more likely.
"– besides I really doubt that he has a flourishing civilian life outside of this." Cecil ends his musings, and glances at Pablo. His curly hair is pulled back today by a handkerchief, and it really suits him. It shows off his bushy eyebrows and the square jaw usually hidden by his longish hair. His friend bites at his dark lips and sighs.
"I saw him sleeping on the meeting room couch when I came back for my laptop after the hours. In the helmet– with a gun under the pillow. I'm so fucking glad he stayed asleep. It felt like being thrown into a tiger enclosure. So you're probably right about his lack of civilian life."
Cecil has to cover his mouth so as not to make an undignified noise. His imagination is far too vivid for these types of conversations.
Rodney is waving their way. His face is flushed.
"Stop fagging around! We need some help here!" Ammunition is scattered on the floor, one of the boxes must've been damaged. Hood is angrily swooping at it with a broom, and Rodney is panicking as Rodney tends to do.
"You would rather have us fagging around with you, don't ya?"
"What– no! Oh– fuck off!" Rodney's plump cheeks grow even redder as he picks up a dustpan, and mutters underneath his breath; "I'll just do it myself then, you cunts."
Pablo moves away from Cecil to stretch out, and he mourns the loss of the other man's steady touch only for a second before his own hand reaches out to stop him from walking towards the ladder.
Pabs looks at him questioningly. He always has such a worried expression that it breaks Cecil stupid little heart.
"Let's make a deal" He looks down to make sure the boss is busy. Pabs just nods used to his antics enough to hold his questions at bay.
"If you find out Red's age first, and prove it to me then…" He quickly tries to think of something Pablo would want desperately enough to risk Hood's anger, and as his gaze travels down to the man's belt a – a flash of pink glittery plush greets him in the form of a unicorn keychain attached to his friends hip. Cecil smiles. "… then I'll be glad to babysit your kids for the weekend."
Pabs expression changes into one of pure determination.
"Two weekends." He immediately snaps grabbing onto Cecil's hand and squeezing it like they are about to start wrestling.
Cecil clicks his tongue, and after a moment of consideration agrees to it with a nod unable to say anything coherent, because Pablo's hand is so warm, and so awfully disorienting.
"What about you?" His friend asks finally letting go of him. "What do you want?"
That's a question isn't it?
You ; is probably not an appropriate answer, but it is true. To be honest the only thing Cecil wants is an excuse to hang out with the older man, and to annoy their boss.
"I'll think about it." He settles on that.
"That's not how deals work, I'm afraid, but…" Pabs winks at him with his far too long far too pretty eyelashes "… I guess I can make an exception for you."
Yes!
"But! Once you know what you want I'm the only one that can still negotiate the terms, you can't change what you owe me, got it?"
"Got it!" He whisper-yells and salutes Pablo while the man leaves him to slide down the ladder, and help Rodney downstairs. He himself decides to continue being a lazy cunt, and as he looks at Hood something mischievous starts brewing in his belly.
Boss has no idea what he had just gotten himself into!