Author's Note: This story popped into my head recently and takes place between my other two Bad Guys fics, "Shadows of Destiny" and "Life Rearranges". To be more specific, it's about 2 months after the first which means Robyn's about 6 months pregnant and thus off active duty and it's roughly the end of March. Contains major spoilers for "Bad Guys" #5 (ie Dingo's back story). The title is from a song by Firewind whose lyrics made me think of Dingo more than once. Enjoy and please review!

Mercenary Man

By: Silver Spider

Hunter had been nervous the first few times the squad had taken on a mission without her in the lead, but Yama proved to be an extremely capable second-in-command. This one especially was supposed to be non-combat, strictly reconnaissance. Robyn made a conscious effort not to check on them every few hours and was a little surprised when it turned out to be not such a difficult task after all. Dingo had been after her to try to relax for months since they had found out about the baby, and there was a certain second trimester euphoria that made her feel not the least bit guilty or useless when she picked up the beat up paperback and curled up in bed to read something that had absolutely nothing to do with work.

The clock on the nightstand read 12:34 a.m.. The squad was due back within a few hours, and Robyn yawned and wondered if she would manage to still be awake by then. Her body rebelled at the idea as another wave of exhaustion hit, and the child within her made a less than gentle nudge. The message was clear: Go to sleep, Mommy. Can't sleep you don't. She smiled, rubbed the swell of her belly soothingly, and turned off the lamp.

The arrival of the others woke her momentarily around five, but even then she did not bother to rise. Yama would leave a full report in her lab, and she could read it when she was fully awake. She kept her eyes half closed, listening to the hum of the helicopter powering down in the garage, several sets of footsteps moving about, some hushed voices, and then... nothing. Robyn waited for a few more beats. When she looked at the clock again, a full half hour had passed. Where was he?

She rose, tied the sash of her white satin robe as best as she could, and padded down stairs to the living area. The lights were still on but dimmed to a minimum, and Dingo was lying on the couch which was far too small to comfortably accommodate his broad frame. He had barely bothered to kick off his boots. The man looked completely worn out. Concerned, Robyn crouched next to him, but was relieved when she did not see any obvious injuries.

"Harry?"

Her touch was careful and gentle, but he jerked awake almost violently as if struck. Pupils dilated in the flight or fight response, before he recognized her and visibly relaxed though the look of exhaustion never left him.

"Hey," he reached out and touched the side of her face, then brushed over her swollen belly. "You okay?"

The concern brought a smile to her face. No matter what he never failed to ask about how she and their child were doing. Ever the gallant hero back from battle.

"We're fine," she assured him. "You, on the other hand, don't look so good."

"Jus' tired," his voice was laced with sleep, but also something else... sadness?

"Why don't you come to bed?" she stroked his cheek, knowing he needed the comfort though not knowing why. "You'll rest better."

"Too tired," he murmured, lids closing again.

Too tired just to get upstairs? Too tired to sleep next to her? But he was asleep again before she could ask anything else, and she did not have the heart to wake him again. Rising rather awkwardly, she went back up to their bedroom but then paused at the dojo. The sun had not yet risen, so Yama would still be awake. She knocked, and a moment later the door opened. For his part, her second looked a little surprised to see her.

"We did not realize you were awake," the gargoyle said. "I left the full report down in the lab on your work station."

"Thank you. I'll take a look at it in the morning. I wasn't really awake, just got up when I heard the squad return."

"Then I apologize for waking you," he bowed slightly. Combined with a strong sense of Japanese propriety, Yama had a bit of a brotherly quality that was a little endearing.

"Don't worry about it," she smiled briefly. "But I saw Harry downstairs. He doesn't look well. Did something happen?"

Yama paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "The mission was a success. We retrieved the information we needed, without physical casualties."

"Physical casualties," she repeated. "What about the other kind?"

Again the gargoyle looked uneasy, as if he was about to divulge something that he was not sure he should have. Finally he said. "Do you remember the man we encountered on our first mission against the Illuminati? Falstaff. The one Dingo called John Oldcastle."

"You ran into him again?"

"Yes," her second-in-command nodded, "and Dingo learned some devastating information."

He was an easy-going individual by nature, someone who rarely looked back and brooded, but this was different. Dingo felt like he was suddenly reliving his life in one massive painful flashback full of unanswerable what ifs: what if that bastard had never come into his life? How different would things have been? Would he have still gone down the path he had?

The rage and sorrow had left him emotionally and physically exhausted. Yama had offered his quite condolences, Fang simply stayed out of his way and kept his mouth shut, and Matrix said nothing. All he wanted was to go upstairs, wrap his arms around Robyn, and sleep for the next week until this nightmare became only that: a nightmare. But Robyn was good at picking up on his mood, just as he had become quite good at picking up on hers. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, he was likely to set off alarms in her head, and Dingo really did not want to discuss anything right now. He had just enough strength left to walk out and collapse on the couch.

The morning changed little. The only thing that had changed with sleep was that the flood of emotions had turned to numbness which was potentially worse. He did not know what to do with himself, so he disappeared into the training room. The overwhelming urge to sink into a black hole was still there, but this was the next best thing. Considering it was almost five when he finally emerged, he thought he'd almost succeeded.

Robyn was waiting for him just outside. He could not tell how long she had stood there but it must have been long enough because she looked a little uncomfortable, her hand on her lower back. He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand and motioned for him to follow as she walked back to the living area. Dingo did so without much thought to the action. He did not realize they were headed to the kitchen until she physically pushed him down onto one of the tall stools and placed a sandwich and a glass of orange juice in front of him.

"You need to eat something," her tone brooked no argument.

Again he followed her instructions on autopilot, though he would not have been able to say what it was he was consuming. He could not really taste the food. At some point the sandwich and juice were gone, and Robyn turned for a second to rinse the plate and glass. When she turned back he was up again and striding out of the kitchen towards the open balcony in the space that served as their living room. Under different circumstances she would have been annoyed at having to chase after him. Now she simply left the dish in the sink, snatched a folder from the edge of the table, and patiently followed a few steps behind.

It was cool and refreshing outside as the sun began to set on the late March afternoon. Dingo rested both of his hands on the railing, looking into the distance of the city but otherwise at nothing in particular. He did not even react much when she came to stand next to him except for a brief glance in her direction. As a general rule, Robyn had an excellent poker face when she chose to put it on, but now her sadness showed openly. He knew she knew and was oddly grateful he did not have to tell her the story and thus relive it. She took his hand and squeezed it in comfort. They did not speak for several minutes.

"I'm so sorry," she finally said.

Dingo shook his head almost automatically. "Not your fault."

"I know. I also know it doesn't always help to hear it, but for what it's worth I'm sorry for your pain. I wish, more than anything, that you did not have to go through any of this."

He did not know what to say so he said just that. "I don't know what to do, Robyn. Don't know how to react to any of this, don't know what I'm supposed to feel..."

"You can feel any way you please," she said firmly. "God knows you're entitled to it."

She did not want to say she knew exactly what he felt – the shock, the numbness. No matter how far the distance from the event itself, the death of a parent was never easy news to take, and the betrayal on top of that... She knew Falstaff was a thief and likely with a body count on his hands, but she never suspected... It did not matter. Her own anger was not likely to help Harry, so she pushed it away and focused on him once more.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" it was a weak question, but she so badly wanted to be useful, to somehow ease his pain.

He took a steading breath and almost absently reached out and brushed his fingers through her loose platinum blond strands before cupping her cheek. The heat from the skin contact seeped through him and replenished a little of his failing strength.

"Can we not talk about it right now?" he managed a small smile but there was a pleading note in his voice. "Having you here helps."

"Of course. Whatever you need, I understand," and she did, because Robyn was not a person who freely shared her pain either. There were times – many times – when his mere presence had soothed her as well. Words were not always needed.

"I do want to show you something," changing the subject, she pulled open the folder and handed him the black and white fuzzy photos. "They're from the latest sonogram."

A light that had been absent all day returned to his face. Talking about the baby had an instantaneous healing affect on him, and she silently thanked their unborn child for it. Dingo scanned through the pictures with genuine interest, frowning every once in a while.

"Is it wrong to admit I can't really tell what I'm looking at?"

She laughed and proceeded to repeat everything from the last checkup which, oddly enough, was in the middle of this disastrous mission. "Doctor said we're both perfectly healthy," Robyn assured him, "but I could have told you that just from how active she's been lately."

"'She'?" he was so focused on the 'healthy' part that he'd almost missed the last comment. Up to this point if she was ever gender-specific about the baby, Robyn had usually claimed mother's intuition and declared that it was a boy. And since she always stuck to her guns, for her to say otherwise meant she now knew differently. His left hand was still buried in her hair but his right open palm came to rest on her belly.

"They told you? We know it's a girl?"

"Yes," she covered his large hand with her own. "They should have been able to tell a lot sooner, but she wasn't in a good position to see anything. Congratulations. You win."

But she was smiling as she said it. They'd been pretending to argue over the baby's gender from the begging. Not that it really mattered to either, but to have something confirmed, a solid image he could have in his mind, felt a bit surreal. The whole thing was starting to feel more and more real, scary, but mostly just exciting.

"Do you mind if we move upstairs or at least to the couch?" he was still looking through the sonogram photos when she shifted uncomfortably on her feet and rubbed her back again.

"Yeah, 'course. Sorry, I didn't... Upstairs is good."

Their bedroom faced east, which Robyn loved since she was a morning person but Dingo did not particularly care for. Not that they usually had a choice in the matter, but now it meant that the room was almost completely dark giving the illusion that it was much later than it really was.

Neither bothered to turn on the light as they lay down side by side facing each other. She sensed he still felt a need for personal space so she gave it only holding his right hand with her own on the pillow between them. He was silent for so long that Robyn thought maybe he'd fallen asleep, but she was close enough that she could still feel the mattress quiver as soundless sobs shook through him.

He was crying.

She scooted a little closer and hugged his body to her own as best as she could and deftly whipped his cheeks with her bare fingers even as the tears kept coming. There was little else she could do but hold him while the bulk of the impact of the tragedy finally passed through his system. Eventually he took several steading breaths and seemed to regain some control.

"He killed my mother," his voice was just above a whisper.

"I know," her hand continued to stroke his brow. There was no need to say that she was sorry again. It had been said and was now simply a given.

"I'm sorry if I was an ass last night," he shifted slightly making their respective positions a little more comfortable. "Parts of my brain are just... not functioning right now. I'm gonna be off for the near future, need time t' get my head straight again, but I promise I will. I hate the couch. Really don't like not being in bed with you."

"Good," Robyn laughed a little, "because I don't like not having you in bed with me, so I'm glad we're on the same page. Seriously, though," they were close enough so that what little light there as allowed her to hold his gaze, "I know you need to deal with this, time to heal. Just don't shut me out, alright?"

She knew he had every right to point out the gross hypocrisy of that statement. Robyn was the one with the tendency to build ten foot tall wall of steel around herself, especially when it came to matters concerning her family. Dingo always had been the calmer one in situations like this, better at dealing with personal issues whether they were hers or his own. He'd been there for her from the very beginning, before the baby, before they were together, before he was even sold on the idea of the Redemption Squad as a functioning team. All she wanted now was for a chance to be there for him when he needed her.

For his part, Dingo was inclined to let her. The statement did not even register as something that needed correcting. He had been completely honest when he said that her presence soothed him. It felt like his mind was starting to finally piece itself back together.

"What would she have thought of me?" he wondered aloud. "'ve never exactly been an upstandin' member of society. Screw things up more time than I get 'em right."

"That's not true," again her voice was firm, not pacifying for the sake of making him feel better. She said it as if she honestly believed it, believed in him. "You've been dealt some pretty lousy hands, Harry, but you've always managed to see straight and make the best of really bad situations. I think she'd be proud of the man you've become all on your own. I am, and our daughter will be as well."

Our daughter...

Robyn's fingers were still lightly tracing his face, so she not so much saw as felt him smile.

"She will be proud of me," he nodded adamantly. "I'm going to be ridiculously good at this dad thing. Better than I've ever been at anything else."

"Of course you will," in truth she had infinitely more faith in his parenting skills than her own, but she did not share that particular thought. "It's going to be alright, Harry."

And he believed her, because the sun was almost down, and the last few days were just too bad for tomorrow not to be better. Yes, he'd lost much, but he had gained so much more. Despite everything, Dingo was still an optimist.