Petra’s father had always been somewhat absent – not by any fault of his own, just by some accident of fate. By the time she had been born, he had already been a father once before. He was tired. He was ready for a break. Ready for retirement. They shared a silent agreement that – as long as she had her mother – there was no need for him. 

But when her mother died, she realised how much she had missed the little joys of having a father. Having someone to protect her too much, hold her too close. By the time she discovered she loved her father, he had already left her too – not knowing how to speak to his youngest daughter. This happy stranger with his wife’s brown curls and his own strong jaw. 

Nick was a father that Petra could respect. Nick was the kind of man that Petra could respect. Both were rare. And so, when he asked her to watch his daughter, she jumped at the prospect of helping him be the best parent he could be. And when she turned his child into a nihilist – an action she defends – she realised that, perhaps, she could help him best without responsibilities. 

Isla was with her mother, which meant that Nick was no fun. He was never any fun when he was thinking about his ex-wife, and he was always thinking about his ex-wife. Just like he was always thinking about his daughter. And so, like any good friend, Petra aimed to distract him. 

She kicked his door lightly three times – both hands were full – and her face pressed against the door.

“Let me in, I have bourbon and chinese.” 

He and Petra had a natural familiarity, though — no, he wouldn’t quite call it that, because informal as he is he’s quite proper in his work and he doesn’t think that she even knew how to address him ( as anything other than 2 ) for a month after the two of them met. It was more —- they fell into a rhythm, easy and comfortable and familiar before they knew it and it was just so easy for her to become a fixture in his life that he can’t quite place when it happened.

He’s not complaining, though. He’s never been good at making friends; it would be unwise for him to turn one down.

Isla is at Astrid’s for the weekend, though, and without a small child as a distraction Nick’s been absolutely on edge, antsy and frustrated and he’s gone to the range more times that he really should in anticipation of the stress seeing Astrid would cause —- as it always does, because even if Nick couldn’t say he was in love with Astrid anymore, not by a long shot, she’s still got her cold, claw-like grip on his heart and knows how to play the strings to turn him into putty or drive him up the walls and well, she just happens to like doing the latter.

( These are the facts: It’s the anniversary of his divorce. Astrid’s new husband picked Isla up from his house and it’s the same smug bastard he caught her in bed with a coupe years ago. Astrid’s well-adjusted and civil while speaking with him, and it makes Nick feel like a petulant child.

Nick would strongly deny those facts being facts, much less them having an effect on his outlook. )

So it’s a saving grace when there are three characteristic bangs on the door, and Nick almost spills his cup ( yes, cup —- not cup with coffee, just a straight cup ) of Bailey’s, but catches himself, and places it on his coffee table delicately.

Standing to get the door, he shouts at her through the walls, hearing the faint ‘bourbon’ and ‘Chinese’ from outside. “Minute, just a minute.” Unlocking the barricade he’s turned his door into ( damn his neurotic nature and job that confirms his worst fears ), he swings it open and takes a bag from Petra, gentleman that he is ( and starving as well, he hasn’t eaten a thing all day ). “How goes it, Pet? Turned any toddlers into fatalists lately? Because we both know you like Nietzsche.” His smile is wry but welcoming as he ushers her in, closing the door behind her.

“That’d– That’d be nice,” he says. Although he’s just said it’s alright, he would much rather not jump halfway out of his skin every time the man seemed to just appear behind him. “Yeah, I guess . . I am always kinda on edge, though. You know.” It doesn’t take a genius to see that Adrien is jumpy, and the agent is smarter than the average yam.

He nods at the man’s response. Oh yes, does he ever. The teenager hasn’t gotten more than ten minutes of sleep for the past three nights, and he’s starting to drag, but hopefully it doesn’t show too much. “Tell her to hug a pillow or a stuffed animal when she sleeps. It helps . . ” It’s not as though he’s never had a nightmare before - he knows how this sort of thing goes.

“I’ll make an effort, then,” he says firmly, because he always has to be firm with Adrien, taking on his dadliest tone, as some ( cough, Petra, cough ) would call it. It really is a force of habit, all this sneakiness —- recon’s one of his specialties for a reason. “Well, that’s not exactly unprecedented, given our... line of work, let’s say.” he mumbles, wry smile playing on his lips. Adrien is a very jumpy young man, less at-ease than Nick can ever remember being, even when he was eight and couldn’t speak English and there were xenophobic bullies at every corner. Then again, Adrien in general is just a lot stranger than Nick remembers himself or his teenage counterparts being.

Nick quirks an eyebrow at Adrien’s response, not at all surprised but a little amused, mostly concerned. The boy has eyebags for days and a constant look of slight emptiness, and Nick just wants to wrap him up in a blanket-burrito and force him to sleep for a week straight. “Will do. I think part of the problem is that she left David — her stuffed dog, I know, she’s an odd duck — at her mother’s, and... God, that woman is terrifying. The minutes I spend dropping Isla off and picking her up is more than enough time spent with her.”

He knows this man. Nick might be just as dangerous as most agents, but he’s already been deemed as a safe person in the teenager’s mind, and there’s no going back from there. It’s easy to slip into Russian when speaking to him - no longer is it something he has to contemplate. “It’s . . alright, I guess,” he says quietly, slipping the photos into his bag before standing and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“How are you?”

He can feel the tension in the air. It might be imagined on his end, but to him, at least, it seems real. Maybe it’s because he’s still nervous - he’s always nervous, always on edge like this. His hands are shaking now with anxious tremors, and he has to clench his fists to calm them. He’s fine; everything is fine.

The switch into Russian is a fluid one, and Nick is immediately put at ease —- even with the odd, odd pictures ( probably inappropriate and oh God, illegal, he’d have to have a talk with him, wouldn’t he ). It probably puts the teenager in a safer place of mind, being his native language. It does for Nick, when he hears his sister call after him in his native tongue, warming him from his toes, reminding him of home. “Well, I still apologize. I’ll try not to from now on —- it’s enough to put anyone on edge, hm?” He can feel Adrien jittering from across the room, and if it weren’t for the disturbing spread of pictures filling the room, he’d feel badly for it.

“I’m alright, Adi. Bit tired, you know how it is.” He swished his ‘adult’ coffee, the thicky, oozy liquid almost spilling from the mug before he brought it to his mouth quickly, clacking his teeth with a bit of a smile. “Isla kept me up all night. Poor thing had a nightmare. Poor me had to deal with it.”

There’s fifty-seven photos laid out before him.

They’re all good quality, but none shows enough of a face to make an accurate assumption as to who it is. Rather, they’re just snapshots of a person: a sharp jaw here, a perfect collarbone there. He doesn’t pull these pictures out often, only when he thinks he’s alone - which, apparently, he isn’t. Adrien quickly shuffles his photos into a stack, the only image left facing upwards being the curve of a shoulder, bare and exposed to the world.

“I didn’t hear you coming,” he whispers, his voice holding a nervous tremor - the same way it does no matter what he’s doing. He doesn’t feel like he’s in trouble, but these photos are private, and no one’s seen them before besides him.

Nick doesn’t like to pry.

It’s different with some people —- it’s different with Petra, for example, because they know each other too well to maintain a guise of professionalism. It’s different with Astrid, because they were married and already knew each other so intimately that it would be a joke to act as though they weren’t once extensions of one another. It’s different with his little sister, and with his daughter’s preschool teacher that he’s been inappropriately flirting with for weeks (going nowhere, in case you were interested). Nick doesn’t pry with Adrien. He knows better than to pry with such a powderkeg of a person, because even if he feels paternal towards the younger man, he knows that Adrien is dangerous, and Nick’s own safety is a priority. Adrien is dangerous, and this he knows when he walks into the room, eyes darting through the pictures, categorizing them as someone, someone, the same someone oh my god and —-