#spyxpyro

I left Teufort two days ago. The Administrator had granted me two weeks leave to deal with the personal issue that had suddenly fallen into my lap, quite literally. My frown deepened as I thought on my current predicament. I should have told the others to come with me. I know I should have. There was a 98% chance of me not leaving this little mission of mine alive. I was angry at myself to be honest. So unbelievably angry. At least I had told Sniper how I felt about him before I left. I had made flower crowns with Pyro. I had a drink with Spy. They didn’t know I was leaving. They couldn’t know. They didn’t know that I had received the package and the effect it had on me. Poor Pyro. Poor Scarlet. She couldn’t have handled coming back.

I let out an angry huff and continued down the docks, sticking to the lighted areas of the salted wooden boards. He would be here. He had probably been waiting for days now. Or maybe he knew exactly when I would be here. Maybe he would foil my plan and not be here at all…then I could take a much needed vacation while I was up here in New England. A quiet clang perpetrated the stillness in the air, startling me from my thoughts. I slowed down and turned, readjusting my knapsack around my torso. Nothing. Just darkness. It could have very well been a cat or something to that effect so shrugging it off, I turned around and continued on. A small motorboat sat drifting idly, lightly tethered to the dilapidated dock. There was a man sitting on the edge of the craft, staring at me. I paused. This was it. This was the moment that I had thought about for so many years. Going back. Killing them. Destroying them.  Saving them. It all blended together…

There it was.

That sound again.

I jumped around, my hand going straight for the Luger in the back of my pants. “If there is a single soul followin’ me, I swear ta god…you are gonna wish ya hadn’t…”

“Putain l'enfer…” Spy decloaked and stood before me, removing his cigarette case and perching one of the white sticks to his lips. With an inhale and a sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well. Decloak, you imbeciles. It seems the spywork should be left to the expert, non?”

A soft whooshing noise filled the air as two more watches were deactivated, leaving a very wide-eyed Pyro and a frowning Sniper.

“What the actual fuck?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Wait. Are you kiddin me right now?!” I could feel the anger bubbling in my gut. “The absolute gall of you people!” I turned around and started stomping to the boat, the man already readying the ship to depart.

“Wait!” I could hear the frantic slap of expensive rubber on aged wood as Spy hurried to catch up to me. “Mon cher. Please. Let us help you.” He reached out and latched onto my wrist, his fingers digging into the worn bandages encircling my hands. “Please, Scout. Just talk to us.”

I spun around, ripping my arm from his grasp. For a moment I just stared at him; Spy looking dapper as always, even in the most dreary of settings. I couldn’t even glance over to his comrades. Just the thought of Snipes being upset made me ill. “Spy…” I sighed. I can’t be angry with them. Though they were mercenaries, they were still people. Of course I wouldn’t be able to hide anything from a freakin’ spy. “A’right look. I’ll tell ya what’s going on. Ya did make an effort to follow me all this way…holy shit…like what…2,000 miles? Unbelievable…” I pulled my knapsack from around my back, flexing my shoulders and stretching out my limbs.

“Better start explaining why the hell you’re even here, Roo.” Sniper stepped forward, sidling up next to Spy, a deep frown etched across his rugged features. I looked up at him and gave him a slight strained smile.

“Didn’t expect ya to miss me so much, Snipes. I’m touched.”

“I ain’t playin’, Scout. What the hell are you doin’ here? ‘S not a safe place.” He growled out, his voice quiet yet dripping with a sober tone.

“Well yeah no shit, Sherlock. I ain’t here for no vacation, ya know?” I felt myself getting angry and took a breath, willing myself to not go into one of my normal outbursts. “Look. ‘M sorry. It’s just…I’m here to take care a’ some business.” I chanced a glance behind me to the mysterious man on the boat. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention the events that were transpiring so with a huff I turned back around and stepped closer to the trio. As I stepped in front of Pyro, I reached down and grabbed her mittened hands, bringing them to my chest. “Py.” I began. “Do you know where you are?” Spy and Sniper turned to us, Spy’s hand lingering on Pyro’s waist. I glanced up from our clasped hands and looked into her stunningly blue eyes. Such a beautiful contrast to her shock of flaming red hair. She shook her head, her lower lip quivering in doubt. “I don’t expect you to remember…” I muttered out quietly.

There was a five year age gap between us. I was currently 29 years old and she was 24. We had spent the last 15 years together, hardly more than a couple days apart at any given time. When she was last here, she was 9 years old. Such a small child with so much on her mind. I took a breath and squeezed her hands, breaking myself out of the darkened reverie. With a glance to Spy and a forced gulp of air, I turned my attention back to the firebug.

“Scarlet.” She looked up, meeting my dark eyes with her own bright ones. “Do you remember Rapture?”

I think I’ll remember her face until the day I die. Her eyes almost immediately clouded over and she jerked her mittened hands from my own bandaged ones. She pulled away from Spy, a look of utter distress marring her features. That distress turned to pain then morphed fairly quickly to anger. Pure, unbridled anger.

“Scarlet. Wait. Lemme -”

SMACK

I could feel the tears rimming my eyes and the tingles of a thousand angry nerve endings as she slapped me across the face. I deserved it really. Sniper jumped between us and pulled me away from her as Spy took her head in his hands, whispering melancholic vocables in his sly French tongue. I could feel the heat of her glare on me as Sniper pressed my head into his shoulder. I risked a glance up and caught her eye, staring right through Spy and into my soul.

“How dare you.”

Sniper turned and brought me around as well so we were facing the unhappy duo. I couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. Letting my gaze fall to the crude wooden planks, I willed myself not to feel at fault. They had decided to follow me. They shouldn’t have gotten tangled in something I didn’t even want them a part of. I wasn’t at fault here. I wasn’t at fault here. I wasn’t -

“Why.”

I glanced up and met the pyromaniac’s fiery eyes.

“B’cause….”

Because I left people to die.

Because I didn’t burn the place to the ground.

Because I can’t deal with my guilt.

“B’cause I received a package in the mail.” I let out a sigh and grabbed onto Sniper’s hand, needing an anchor of some kind. “It was addressed from Ryan.” The name felt like acid on my tongue. A thousand memories felt like a million sucker punches to the gut; Scarlet and her ragged doll, Frank Fontaine’s voice, the smell of mildewed rot….

I could feel an icy sweat beginning to snake it’s way down my spine.

“I didn’t want ya ta’ come. Much less even know about my little cross country adventure, Py. I’m sorry for not tellin’ ya! I really am! But I know you wouldn’t have let me go if you knew what I was doin’.” I glanced over to Sniper and Spy. Spy seemed to be digesting every word that spewed forth from my mouth, the information utterly new to him. Sniper, on the other hand, looked completely confused.

“Alright, Scout. Spill it. What exactly are ya doin’ here?” I met his eyes for a moment, trying to decipher the best possible way to tell him I was about to embark on what could quite literally become a suicide mission.

What was the best course of action here? Turn around and leave them standing here as I sail away into the night? Tell them I’ll see them back at base and forget the entire thing? Piss them off enough to never speak to me again so I don’t feel guilty about abandoning anyone?

The man behind me cleared his throat, signaling he was ready to set sail. I turned and nodded, already slinging my bag over my shoulders. With a heavy sigh, I looked back up at the expectant trio.

“Look. Guys…” I didn’t know what to do.

“I’m comin’ with you.” I stared at him for a moment, the sharpshooter clearly already having made his mind up.

“That’s…uh. That’s not gonna happen. Sorry, Snipes but I ain’t exactly gonna let ya follow me into what is sure ta be an extremely dangerous situation. I gotta get goin’. I’ll see you guys later on.” And with that I turned and began making my way to the boat, the patter of footsteps hurrying to catch up. I felt the large grip of Sniper grabbing my arm and with an abrupt turn, I found myself looking up into the extremely close face of the pissed-off marksman; his glasses did nothing to hide the flare of anger in his stormy gray eyes.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Roo. You sure as hell aren’t “letting” me do shit. I’ll choose to follow ya if I so desire if I think you’ll be in any kind of danger. And I know for certain this is dangerous from the way you’re actin’. So either you stop actin’ so bloody mysterious about all this or you deal with the fact I’m followin’ you to wherever it is you’re goin’.” His voice had dropped several octaves to the familiar growl, except this time the lustfulness I normally loved was all but gone and replaced with a kind of anger I truly wasn’t ready for. And I was honestly somewhat scared of. I must have looked taken aback, as he removed his glasses and ran a calloused hand over his long face. “‘M sorry, love. I’m just worried ‘sall.”

I gave him a small smile and pressed a kiss to his cheek, trying to diffuse the situation. With a look to the quiet Spy and a glance to Pyro, I managed a half-hearted grin.

“If you guys wanna follow me, I ain’t gonna stop ya. I gotta get goin’ though.” I took a deep breath and shot Pyro another look. “Py. I never wanted ya to come back, ya’know? So I don’t expect ya to follow. But if ya did decide to come, just know that I could really use your smarts on the layout of the place. You know the city like the back of your hand.” The inner battle that she had raging had smoothed out to a feeling of numbness. She looked defeated. Almost as if she had came to that realization on her own. With a slight nodding of her head, she approached me and took my hand - her palms blisteringly hot beneath her gloves.

Spy stepped forward, his heels sharply clicking into the quietness of night. “I am coming as well.” He took Pyro by the waist and led her forward to the patiently waiting boat.

“Well…” With a grin, he leaned down and kissed my forehead, his lips cool against my clammy skin. With that, he stalked off to the boat and took a seat next to a pale Pyro and a contemplative Spy.