Gray punched in the code to the padlock on the fence. It didn't open. A small red flashing light lit up the corner. He tried again. Another flash of red.
"Fucking Lyon," Gray cursed under his breath. He pulled out his phone to call him. One ring. Two rings. Answer the fucking phone, you piece of shit.
"Gray! Back so soon?" The teasing edge of his voice was not lost on Gray and he decided to punch Lyon's face in once he got inside. He had no sleep because the town Lyon had sent him to was more like a fucking village than it was an actual town, the target had been in plain damn sight, and everyone knew everyone so staying in the motel in town would have made him the prime suspect as soon as the man was reported missing, so Lyon is an asshole. Gray just walked for three hours through the woods to not be seen and he hasn't had coffee or food and now he can't even get inside his own damn building because Lyon changed the freaking code.
"You know exactly why I'm back so fucking soon, Lyon. That was a grunt job that even you could have done in your sleep and I couldn't even stay in town. Give me the code."
Lyon is chuckling on the other end of the phone and Gray is going to strangle him. He is going to cut his body into tiny little pieces and feed him to the fishes.
"So what crawled up your ass today, bro?" Lyon can be a great sibling at times. He knows how to work with Gray, he didn't let himself cry at Ur's funeral so that the mourners would all huddle around him and leave Gray to mourn in peace, he even buys food to keep Gray's apartment livable because Gray is hardly ever home long enough to go grocery shopping. All in all, he's a stand up guy. It's moments like these, though, where Lyon sends him to the middle of goddamn nowhere, deprives him of sleep, and locks him out of his own building that make Gray think for a few minutes that he might be better off tossing his body into the lake. The urge is always brief and passing, but it also always, always, comes back because Lyon does not know when to quit.
"Give me the fucking code." His voice is low and soft and a string of very precisely pronounced syllables that signal he's done joking and exhausted and if he does not get into the building to make some coffee real freaking soon, someone is going to die.
"Okay, Okay." So maybe Lyon does know when to stop... if he gets a little reminder to help him realize it. "82-64-97."
Gray punches in the code silently. He's had Lyon tell him the code before and hung up only to realize Lyon was a lying little shit and having to call back again. The light flashes green and the gate pops open an inch or so. Good.
"Do I get a thank you?" No. Gray clicks on him. He's inside already so he doesn't need the conversation. Not right now. He'll hear Lyon knocking on his door in the morning anyway and let him in and then they'll argue and fight and get tired and Lyon will give him a new file and Gray will make food with whatever food Lyon got and they'll have a laugh over something stupid and then Gray will leave again. It's just how they work. Lyon gets half the cash anyway as his handler because Gray would rather talk to Lyon than ever interact with his father again and this is his way of maintaining the peace.
Gray is expecting to be left alone for the rest of night. That is not what happens. When he opens his door, Lyon is right there in his living room sitting on the recliner and his leg is fidgeting up and down repeatedly in a nervous gesture as he taps his fingers against the arm of the seat.
Breathe. Just breathe. In. Out.
His teeth are gritted together when he practically growls out, "What do you want?"
Lyon breathes deep and takes an envelope out from his pocket, handing it over silently. They don't talk at night. It's an unspoken rule since the time that tensions were high after they lost Ultear and Lyon and Gray both ended up in the hospital when one jab went a little too far. That makes Lyon's presence here even more worrisome because they do their routines in the mornings only so this has to be serious.
Gray takes the envelope slowly. There's nothing moving in it. There's not an excess amount of information. He takes out a thin sheet of paper folded in thirds. There's a note on it. The message is brief and to the point.
You have a new assignment. You are to report to the head office before midnight.
- S.F. Chief Operative.
Gray stares at the words. As unusual as it would be, he's hoping that Lyon will burst into fit of giggles and tell him it's a joke, or offer him some medicine for what he's praying is a hallucination but neither of those things happen. Gray hasn't seen his father in five years, not since he graduated the program and signed Lyon on as his handler, his middle man. He hasn't seen Silver Fullbuster since he accepted his first assignment, partly because neither of them is around town much, but mostly because they both avoid each other at all costs. For the oh-so-great Chief Operative Silver Fullbuster to request speaking to him directly is nothing short of a miracle. Or a curse. Either is a genuine possibility. The fact that the words are written in the man's actual handwriting instead of print startles Gray. No one can hack the Fullbuster servers. No one can get through their digital fortress. His father is scared. Shaken enough to send Gray a handwritten note as if someone might be watching the emails or tracking the messages he sends out to the handlers. Who the hell is he sending me to?
He tears his eyes away from the flimsy sheet of paper to glance down at Lyon. Lyon is watching him, expressionless, but that's his default when he's too worried to assess the situation objectively. Silver must have gone to see Lyon directly. That's never happened before. In fact, Lyon sounded cheery over the phone a few minutes earlier so Silver must have left the building not two minutes before Gray made it to his floor. Gray hates Silver all the more for getting past him so effortlessly, making a mockery of his training so easily.
Lyon nods at him. There are no words exchanged in person this late. Not even under these circumstances, but Lyon still reads his eyes almost as easily as Ur used to and Gray knows he should leave. He nods at him in response and goes. Out the door, down the stairs, through the fence, and into the car lot down the street. He zeroes in on an old beat up Corolla that has chipped paint, but seems to be in working condition. He picks that car. He's just borrowing it, and no one will report it missing if it's back by the early hours of the morning.
It's about thirty minutes before he gets to the head office building. He'd known where it was since he was sixteen. He's still never set foot inside.
He gets into the elevator and presses the button for the penthouse floor. His father doesn't even live there. He just directs his handlers from that place. He doesn't know where his father lives. He's stopped asking. If the man dies in his sleep, Gray might just throw a party in celebration.
Floor 13, Floor 29, Floor 37, Floor 54, Floor 66, Floor 72, Penthouse.
Anyone else meeting the Chief Operative in his own territory would dress up in a suit and tie, maybe even bring a briefcase. Gray is dressed in dark green cargo pants, muddy black combat boots, a black T-shirt with several tears in it from a struggle earlier in the day that he left there purposely to offend his father, and his necklace dangling out over his shirt instead of under it. He sometimes keeps it under to make sure he doesn't lose it, but today it's jutting forward a little over his chest with every step he takes and it's a big fuck you to his father because the minute the man sees it, he stills.
It's a movement that lasts only a fragment of a second and anyone who didn't understand him as well as Gray wouldn't notice it, but Gray does and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking. She was a better parent than you ever were and it's your fault she's gone. Her and her daughter. It's all your fault. Remember that it's all your fault.
"Gray," the man grounds out.
"Silver," Gray responds, voice flat. Gray never calls him father. Silver never calls him son.
There's a beat of soundlessness. Another. The only sound heard on the floor is the sound of an airplane departing from the airport in the distance. Neither breaks the silence. Silver hands a file to Gray over the surface of the wooden desk with a fancy marble top set in it. The file has a black tab and Gray hesitates before reaching out for it. Black. Confidential. Dangerous. A job that no operative has returned from. Files are only labelled black when over five operatives in the second tier of command fail. Five lives. Five people with the same training and rank as Gray, taken out. The policy is to assign these files to the first tier, to a man like Silver, the Chief Operative of their division, once the sixth operative fails. Silver is assigning a black tab file to Gray. This could be the first sign of faith Silver has ever shown in him. It could also be the job that Silver intends to get him killed with.
Gray takes the file. Operatives do not open files near other operatives. The files are the concentration of every detail that scouts and previous operatives have sent in about the target's life. They are the single most important source of information an operative can get, containing the reward amount, the background information, the online trail, the habits, the obstacles, the routines. It's their livelihood written across a few pages stuck in a manilla folder with a nice colorful tab that they are trained to keep from prying eyes. Sure, they're assigned their cases individually and no operative is going to touch another's assignment with a ten foot pole because that could start a small war, but none of them are open with their information because secrecy has been drilled into them in the program. The memory of feeling electricity running through every cell in their body dissuading them from sharing details with anyone other than their handler.
He's walking away, taking a step into the elevator again with as much composure as he can muster when Silver calls out, "Gray."
He pauses in between the doors to keep them open and doesn't turn around. "Yes?"
A beat of silence. Two.
"Don't disappoint me."
Gray steps into the elevator and the doors close behind him.
Funny. He almost thought his father might say "be careful." He almost believed that, somewhere underneath the deadbeat full-of-shit exterior, his father cared a tiny amount. So much for good parenting.
Gray is alone in the elevator. He glances around inconspicuously for any sign of cameras. There are none. He's not going to read the file entirely on the ride down. He'll do that in his apartment where he knows no one will interrupt his planning right before packing his shit and heading out to wherever he needs to be to reach whoever he needs to take out. He'll just open it to glance at the name of his target. It is a black file after all. No one could blame him for being curious. He opens the file and looks at the blurry picture of pastel pink locks and tan skin. His target. The man five highly trained operatives failed to bury six feet under.
The name is just to the right of the amateur photograph in big bold letters.
Natsu Dragneel.