A/N: The idea for this came from this tumblr post about a fake!married trope. So this was meant to be rather lighthearted but it turned out not quite that way? But yeah I originally intended this as a silly sort of oneshot so there are moments of… well, it /is/ a fake!married trope. Also more notes on this fic at the end.
It was supposed to be a simple mission.
Get in, get the flash drive, get out. The hardest part would be the waiting—the intercepted message hadn't been clear and they'd have to spend who-knew-how-long at the beach resort, staying alert for the agent's arrival. Until then it was just a matter of being patient. Watching and waiting.
But Levi was not good at that; he'd spent his entire life in action and hanging around a beach all day pretending to be on vacation made him more antsy than looking down the sights of a rifle, target just around the corner. From his time living on the streets to all those years spent running and hiding, lying and spying, shooting and dodging, he'd always reveled in movement—freedom to exert himself, push himself as hard as he could, be who he was. And he definitely wasn't someone on vacation.
"Stop scowling," Petra said quietly by his left, stretched out across a beach towel, paperback in hand, the hotel front door and parking lot in sight across the street. "You're enjoying yourself, remember?"
Oh right, and he was supposed to be married.
He'd had no idea why Erwin had chosen him for the mission—he was hardly fit to play the part of loving husband—until he'd learned who he would be working with: Agent Petra Ral, linguistics specialist, and one of the few people he knew from his job that he would consider a friend. He hadn't joined this line of work to make friends, yet somehow she had earned the title without his realizing it.
But she wasn't Petra Ral and he wasn't Levi Kosta; they were Adam and Helena Robins, newlyweds from the city on their honeymoon at Virginia Beach. They'd first met in college and started dating years after their graduation. Helena was a language major who spoke English, Spanish, and German; she made jewelry to sell online and had a fondness for romance novels; Adam was an accountant who'd played on his high school lacrosse team and coached a kids' soccer team on weekends.
Levi thought Adam was rather dull; if Levi had to take a woman on a honeymoon he'd definitely go out of the country. But he was never planning to marry and he probably wouldn't live to see his fortieth birthday anyway (he'd just turned thirty-four last year) so it wasn't worth thinking about.
Adam was just another facade he had to maintain, like Evan Wilcox the Texan businessman or David Curtis the high school math teacher, like every single name printed on his dozens of fake IDs. He could slip in and out of identities as easily as he could breathe, but that was as long as he was doing something for whatever mission he'd been sent on—right now he felt like he was wasting time.
"This is so fucking stupid," he grumbled even as he plastered on a fake smile of contentment, hoping no one was looking too closely because he wasn't really trying. "We've been here a week and no sign of the guy."
"It's one of the closest leads we've gotten on the Colossal Project so it's worth it."
"I know that," Levi said, but he must have sounded irritated still because Petra turned to roll her eyes at him.
"Look, I know pretending to be married to me sucks, but just shut up and do it, okay? Someone's looking over right now; rub this on my back and look like you're enjoying it because I'm your freaking wife." She tossed a tube of suntan lotion at him as she returned her attention to her book—and the hotel parking lot beyond it.
He uncapped the tube and squeezed a small dollop of the white cream on his hand, trying not to wince at the slimy feeling on his palm. He leaned forward and smeared it across her back, fingers working under the strap of her bikini top and massaging the lotion into her sun-bronzed skin. He could feel her sigh of pleasure through her body and he had to admit the answering tingle in his fingertips wasn't an act.
He wasn't sure why she was so hostile to him nowadays—when they'd first met she'd looked up to him, a seasoned operative who'd been on many successful missions and had failed only a handful. She hadn't been repelled by his rather unfriendly personality, and eating lunch with her or nodding when he saw her in the hallways at headquarters became something to look forward to.
But they weren't civilians, they were CIA agents willing to put their lives on the line for their country, and forming attachments was useless and not recommended. Even so, he'd found her company welcome, had always felt relieved whenever she returned relatively unharmed from an operation, and despite their difference in age and clearance level he'd eventually started thinking of her as a friend.
If he had to pinpoint when things had changed, it would be about five months ago—he'd just returned from a mission that had not only been unsuccessful, it had been a catastrophic failure and he still had the scars to prove it. Physically he was fine, but the psychiatrist Erwin had assigned him thought he needed more time to recover mentally; Levi hadn't liked that.
It had been Auruo Bossard's birthday that day and he'd drank himself practically into a stupor. Alcohol had always been Levi's weak point (that and his height or lack thereof) and he'd taken advantage of it that night, drinking so much the only recollection he had of the evening was entering the house and after that his next memory was of waking up in a bed that was not his own, clothes strewn about the floor, limbs sore and aching, the faint press of a woman's body against his the only thing he could recall of the entire night.
He'd been 50% sure that woman was Petra Ral.
She'd treated him perfectly normally the next time she saw him though, no "hey how sore are you" no "so what did you think," and he'd decided it hadn't been her, it had been some random woman he'd never see again. But since then she'd grown colder, no longer chatting up a storm when they were alone or inviting him out for coffee when they were both around, and sometimes he still wondered.
"Adam," she said suddenly, and his fingers paused in the circles he was rubbing into her back. The lotion was already spread evenly across her skin and he hadn't noticed.
"What?"
"Get me a soda."
He understood; he made a show of kissing her on the cheek and telling her he'd "be right back, babe" loudly before standing, making his way to the cooler set out by the back of the beach, closer to the sidewalk that led up to the front door of the hotel. A black sedan was pulling up to the curb, sleek and smooth and professional, back license plate conveniently made illegible by well-placed gunk, and Levi instantly knew this was the person they were waiting for.
Of course he had no proof, but he'd come to trust his sixth sense more than the well-documented logic of others; his own gut instincts had never failed him before and he was sure they weren't about to start now.
He swiped a can of soda from the cooler and held it up, pretending to squint at the nutrition facts printed on it; even as he made a face and put it back, choosing a can of diet Coke instead (unhealthier, really; not that he ever drank soda), he was noting the make of the car, the size and appearance of the luggage being unloaded from the trunk, the brown leather jacket and olive skin and short buzz cut of the lean man who got out of the passenger's seat.
Levi picked another can, this one Sprite, and brought both drinks back to Petra. "Got it," he said, handing her one as he plopped down beside her on the towel, and then in a lower voice, "I'll check the security feeds tonight."
"Okay," she said, and as another young couple he recognized from their hotel ambled past not too far from them, she added in a louder voice, "Looking forward to tonight, babe."
Levi tried not to feel embarrassed when they glanced over, smirking in understanding, and he thought maybe Petra was overdoing the whole thing.
.
.
.
She was all business once they returned to their hotel room that evening though; the moment the door was closed she stepped away from him, pulling out the small sensor Hanji had given them and dropping to her knees, running the bug-detecting gadget against corners and small cracks in the base of the wall. Levi remained silent until she'd traveled the whole room with it and found nothing. Again.
"I'm going to shower first," she said, grabbing a pair of shorts and a tank top from where they were folded and laid neatly on her suitcase. "You can get started."
He watched her walk into the bathroom and shut the door, then made his way over to the desk, taking his computer out of his bag and starting it up. He'd rinsed as much as he could at the public showers but he still felt sticky and crusty with sand, and he couldn't help lamenting that the TITAN agents hadn't chosen a mountain resort to meet up at.
TITAN: Treachery, Intelligence, Terrorism, Assassination—and the main source of the CIA's troubles for the past four or five years. They'd started out as a small European criminal organization during World War I that had never strayed into the international spotlight, only choosing to cause small spots of inconvenience for the Italians, the French, the Germans, occasionally the English. It wasn't until recently that they'd begun branching out, gaining a rapid rise in members and spreading their influence to Asia and the Americas, Australia as well.
MI6 had never had much to say about them but all of a sudden the name "TITAN" was all that could be heard from the British; ASIS had started complaining as well. Suddenly factory accidents in India and business failures in Peru could be traced back to them; suddenly they'd gone from lurking in the shadows to out in the open.
Not much was known about their motives and why they were suddenly so busy, but from the word of spies sent into Germany (where they seemed to be based) and the hard work of hackers and other specialists chipping away at the cracks in TITAN's armor, it appeared the organization was planning something huge. Something nefarious and world-shattering; something they'd dubbed "the Colossal Project."
From the bits and pieces the world's intelligence services had managed to gather about the Colossal Project, it seemed to be an operation that had been in the works since the early days of the organization's history, something that had been brewing ever since the end of World War II. No one knew if the sudden increase in activity was planned or if TITAN only had the means to start acting now (their rise to power had begun in the early 21st century), but whatever the reason for their entrance into international terrorism and crime, it was nerve-wracking.
Levi personally had no feelings towards TITAN: it was just another enemy for him to weed out, another opponent for him to outsmart. He was considered something of an expert on fighting them, as TITAN agents were well-trained and he'd managed to kill or capture more of them than most of his comrades, but he didn't care—maybe he was just fucked up in the head (as most people who worked and managed to survive years in the service were, he thought) but he honestly didn't care who he was lying to, who his gun was pointed at: if that person was a threat to national security, if Erwin had told him to do it, then he would do it, whatever it was.
The TITAN agent who'd shown up at the beach resort had looked pretty standard—tall but not too tall, rich but not too rich, well-dressed but not too well-dressed. Someone who would blend in well, but Levi had sharper eyes than most.
By the time Petra came out of the shower, dressed and toweling her hair dry, he'd already hacked into the hotel's system and pulled up on his computer screen the man's information as well as images of all the security cameras in the building.
"Michael Walker, Room 205, staying for two nights. Billing address is listed somewhere in Chicago."
"So who did that car Mr. Walker came out of belong to?" Petra made quotation marks around the name; it was clearly as fake as the ones listed under their room.
"Rented, though the driver was probably one of their people. It came from the airport."
That meant nothing though; TITAN was good at covering its tracks. The man could have jumped into the car mid-ride from a ditch in the ground for all they knew.
"You don't think he'll leave in the middle of the night, do you?"
"Probably not," Levi said, tapping a few keys. The hotel blueprints flashed on screen and he made a mental note of the various routes from their room to the agent's as well as the locations of the service elevators and stairs. They lived on the same floor, but it never hurt to be prepared.
"It's possible though," Petra said. "Maybe we should keep watch."
"Whatever you want, dear," he said dryly, and she shot him a dark look.
"You always say you never need much sleep so I'll take first watch. I'll wake you up in a few hours. Stick to your side of the bed."
He would've brought a sleeping bag with him but that would obviously look suspicious, so they'd been sharing the king-size bed for the past week. She always stayed as far from him as she could, lying on the edge of the bed like she was trying to roll off, but once he'd woken to find her pressed against his side, head on his shoulder and one arm thrown over his waist, her face smooth and untroubled as she slept. He'd extricated himself from her grasp before she could wake and somehow blame the situation on him, but he wouldn't deny that it had felt nice.
"You really sure you want that?"
"Shut up, Levi. We're not in public right now."
"Just practicing."
She shrugged, a quick, delicate movement, and he tried not to let his eyes linger on the moisture still clinging to her bare arms and legs. "When the time calls for it you can act but when we're sitting around you always look like you'd rather be somewhere else. You could work on that."
He didn't reply and she crossed her arms, giving him a pointed look. "I'm done with the bathroom. Go shower; I'm not going to sleep in the bed if you get in without washing beach gunk off your body."
He found it ironic that she was the one telling him to get clean but he would never object to a shower. Pulling a pair of clean boxers out of his suitcase, he headed for the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He'd just turned the hot water on when Petra yelled, "And come out in a shirt this time!"
"We're on the fucking beach every day! Does it matter?"
"Do it!"
He rolled his eyes but obliged, opening the door to grab a shirt from his suitcase as well. Petra stared at him as he did, eyes sparking in something like challenge, and he avoided her gaze as he went back in and shut the door.
A memory flickered in the back of his mind, some other time she'd looked at him like that, but he could have sworn it was in an entirely different context, something less angry and more… heated, perhaps. He couldn't remember.
He shook the thought as he folded his clothes and set them on the rack hanging above the toilet; he needed to focus on the mission objective and hopefully the hot water would clear his mind.
.
.
.
Levi had only managed to sleep three hours before Petra woke him up and now as the sun's rays slowly filtered through the gaps in the curtains, he started feeling the lack of rest catch up with him. Three hours was usually enough to get him by but being in the sun all day was tiring, and he'd spent the past few hours alternating between staring at a computer screen and playing some of the games on the smartphone filled with Adam's contacts that Hanji had given him while keeping an eye on the computer screen. The hallways of the second floor and the outside of the hotel Room 205 faced had been deserted all night like he'd suspected.
Petra began to stir, shifting slightly and mumbling something incoherent under her breath. Levi tore his eyes away from her sleeping form lest she sit up and tell him he was being a creep for watching her sleep. He wasn't watching her sleep. He was bored and looking for possible inconsistencies or irregular patterns in her slumber.
He huffed. Right. He was watching her sleep.
By the time she was fully awake and dressed, he had not moved from his spot in the chair and no one had left Room 205 yet. She pursed her lips at him and he shook his head.
"I'll order breakfast," she said, picking up the phone. "Unless you want to go downstairs?"
They could see the lobby from the breakfast area but it was probably best to be safe than sorry. They only had today; the agent would be staying one more night—for appearances, likely, or maybe he'd just miss the check-out time today—and then he'd be gone. Today was the day they'd been waiting for, the reason they'd spent a week lounging around getting tanned (or in the case of the back of Levi's neck, sunburnt).
"It's fine," he said. "Who'd want to go down early after a late night anyway?"
She blinked at him, the edges of her lips quirking in amusement, and he thought she might say something cheeky or perhaps laugh, but after a moment she only turned back to the phone to call room service. "I'm ordering you scrambled eggs and bacon again," she said, covering the mouthpiece with a hand as she spoke.
Once the food arrived, Petra pulled the curtains apart, letting the sun's light warm the room, and sat next to him with her tray on her lap. They ate without speaking, silverware clinking loudly in the silence, watching the computer screen; many people on the second floor had left their rooms already, but not the occupant of the room they were targeting. Levi was nearly done with his eggs (they were disgusting and tasteless) when Petra suddenly sat forward, pointing to the computer screen. "He's leaving."
Instantly Levi dropped his fork to zoom in on a few other video screens, stacking them next to each other in a square so that they could observe the few relevant feeds in detail. Mr. Walker made his way down the stairs instead of using the elevator, emerging on one side of the lobby to exit the hotel, nodding at the receptionist as he did.
"You don't think he's meeting his contact already, do you?"
"No, the message said they'd meet in the hotel. He's probably taking a walk, scoping out the area or something. Let's go check his room now."
In unspoken agreement they set their breakfast trays aside, Petra going to fetch the master key card she'd swiped from housekeeping and Levi tapping away at the keyboard, selecting two separate loops of five minutes of empty hallway to run through the feeds. He easily overrode the system to set the loops to display on the second floor's two security cameras before standing and following Petra out the door.
Their next-door neighbor, an elderly gentleman by the name of Pixis, was exiting his room the moment they stepped out. "Good morning," he said cheerfully, nodding at them as they passed. "Out for another day at the beach?"
"That's right," Petra said, linking her arm with Levi's and giving his shoulder a playful swat. "Adam needs more tanning; he's still as pale as the bedsheets—I swear I can't tell the difference sometimes."
Levi tried to keep a straight face as Pixis chuckled. "You young ones have a good time," he said. "Enjoy life before you turn as old as me. Honeymoons are usually once-in-a-lifetime experiences—you kids have fun, okay?"
"Oh, we have been," Petra said with a wink, and Levi managed a hopefully-not-too-strained smile when Pixis looked at him.
"Was that really necessary?" he asked once the man had disappeared down the hallway and was definitely out of earshot, the ding of the elevators signaling his absence. "That probably wasn't necessary—"
Petra rolled her eyes. "Lighten up, you grumpy old man. That's probably the most fun I can have on this so-called honeymoon so suck it up."
"I'm only six years older than you—"
"Yeah, whatever," she said, stopping in front of Room 205 and sliding the key out of her pocket. "Come on."
It was a routine check, something he'd done dozens, perhaps hundreds of times before; it was more out of habit than the hope that they'd actually find something. Mr. Walker probably had the flash drive with him, and if not, it'd be in the safe in the closet or somewhere equally tough to reach without raising red flags.
Still, Levi watched Petra search for hidden cameras or microphones or other recording devices before they started; he pulled a pair of gloves on before touching anything in the room; they opened drawers and lifted desk lights and dug around the corners of the king-size bed.
He took note of the man's possessions: one small dark blue suitcase and one black briefcase, both closed; the leather jacket from yesterday hanging in the closet and a few toiletries by the bathroom sink; two half-eaten packs of crackers on the bedside table and a pair of sandals underneath the swivel chair.
Petra unzipped the suitcase and went through it methodically; he rifled through the contents of the briefcase, careful not to dent or crease the papers and folders inside. At one point he felt something small and rectangular that might have been a flash drive (likely any flash drive though, not the one they were looking for), but it turned out to be a pack of gum. Just a pack of gum upon closer inspection, not a gadget disguised as one, which he'd used many of before.
Within five minutes they'd gone through the whole room and found nothing; Petra removed her gloves and raised her eyebrows at him, indicating it was time to leave. He took a brief glance around the room, making sure it looked exactly the same as it had when they'd first come in, and opened the door a crack. After ensuring the hallway was empty, they both slipped through.
Back in their own room, Petra threw herself onto the bed and stretched her arms over her head with a loud sigh. Her shirt rode up slightly and Levi averted his eyes, wondering why they were drawn in that direction when he'd already seen plenty of her bare skin in the past week.
"I guess we'll be spending another day out today," she said, and laughed when she saw the expression on his face. "Don't look so upset; the beach isn't that bad and the shops around it are awesome."
"I have sunburn already."
"Just lotion up."
"Lotion is sticky and disgusting."
"Deal with it and do your job."
She made a good point, but that didn't stop him from taking his time when it came to preparing to leave. She stood outside waiting for him as he changed into a pair of swim trunks and a T-shirt in the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror and wondering if he looked like a blissful newlywed on his honeymoon. Somehow he doubted it.
"Come on, hubby!" she called through the door, and he was out immediately, scowling when he caught her hiding a giggle.
"Never call me that again," he said, and she only smirked at him.
"That depends on how well you behave today, Adam," she said, and he knew what she really meant: Today's the last day. You're the more experienced agent but I'm the better actor so do your damned best. At least that was how he interpreted it.
"I guess that depends on your definition of 'well,' sweetheart," he said, and pinched her on the waist as he walked past. He was rewarded with a slap on his back just a tad too low to be considered friendly, and he turned back to look at her. She met his gaze, eyes challenging, and he smirked back.
If that was how she wanted to play it, he'd be perfectly willing to oblige.
.
.
.
Beaches, Levi decided, were way overrated.
The sun was relentless, its rays pounding into him with enough force to crush him into the sand, but there was no place to hide from its merciless heat. The sand was soft between his toes but looked deceptively safe; he'd stepped on too many broken shells to think otherwise. Petra had made him take a walk with her in the surf upon their arrival and now half the things he stepped on stuck to the bottom of his feet, and he was positive that if he ever got married, the Alps or just anywhere with snow would be his first choice for a honeymoon destination. At least one could bundle up against the cold.
"I'm going to pick a few seashells or something," Petra said, standing up from the towel she was lying on and combing her fingers through her hair. "Call me when you see the guy."
Being a well-trained spy and spending a week at the beach did nothing but good to her; she was toned and tanned, her skin bronzed just the right amount, a light smattering of freckles made apparent across her cheeks, her lower arms, the backs of her knees. He knew she was strong, had seen her wrestle men twice her size before and win, and not for the first time that week he wondered how strong she would be against him.
He was probably staring because she dropped her hands to rest them on her hips. "Haven't gotten sick of this yet?" she wanted to know, and there was a certain teasing tone in her voice as she added, "You'd better feel the same way in twenty years, Mr. Robins."
She was playing a part, he knew that, but suddenly he couldn't help thinking she would never say the same thing even if the situation were real, if they were actually a recently wed couple—and that one day she might say the same thing to someone else instead. He had no plans to get married, but what about her? Maybe in two years she'd be off at some other beach with some other man, but they would actually be married, and—
Levi was saved from his sudden wandering thoughts when he spotted a flash of brown in the corner of his vision—he turned his head slightly and saw the man they were waiting for, Mr. Walker, appearing on the edge of the sidewalk, coming back from wherever he'd been in the resort to reenter the hotel.
"I think the sun's getting to me," Levi said, standing as well and picking up the tube of sunscreen next to him, stuffing it into the beach bag on the sand. "I'm going to head back to the hotel for a moment and sit in the lounge area, maybe grab a drink—you coming?"
"Sure," Petra said with an easy smile. "Just give me a moment to make myself decent. I've been wanting to use the Wi-Fi in the lobby anyway; I need to upload some of our honeymoon pictures to Facebook."
"You and Facebook," Levi said, rolling his eyes in what he hoped was a fond manner as she wrapped a clean towel around her waist and pulled flip-flops out of their bag. "You should set them as private; I don't need random strangers on the Internet ogling my wife."
"Anything for you, hubby," was her cheerful response as she looped an arm through his and practically dragged him across the beach; he was unable to stop his eye from twitching at the inane term.
Inside the hotel the lobby was cool, the air-conditioning on full blast. Petra smiled and waved at the receptionist as they passed the front desk, entering the now-closed off breakfast area that had various couches and armchairs around it, a drink bar on one end and double doors leading to a patio that overlooked the beach on the other. A few other people were there; a man in a baseball cap and a Yankees T-shirt lounging on a lawn chair outside, a teenage girl squinting at her phone under the sun's glare by the steps leading down to the sidewalk, an elderly couple sitting side by side on a bench with drinks in their hands.
There was another bench against the side of the patio facing back into the hotel; Petra plopped down on it with a noise of contentment. "It's nice to feel the sun sometimes without sand getting everywhere," she said. "Didn't you get some on your tongue last night?"
Levi tried not to choke on his own spit as he joined her on the seat; she scooted away so she could lean against the armrest and prop her feet up on his lap. "Yeah," he finally managed. "It got washed away pretty quickly though."
The teenage girl snickered to herself and the man coughed, not quite looking at them. Petra bit her lip to hide a smirk.
"Come on," she said, reaching into the beach bag for her phone. "I haven't posted any shots of us together yet."
"You know I hate—"
"Suck it up," she said, then let a mischievous grin flit across her face as she added in an undertone, "It's not that hard; I did it last night, didn't I?"
The elderly couple must have heard her anyway because now they were looking at them with looks somewhere between amusement and disapproval; it took every ounce of willpower Levi had not to glare and say, "This is not necessary." He settled for nudging her and trying to smile.
She opened the camera on her phone and moved so she was practically sitting in his lap, her head resting on his shoulder; she held the phone up and angled it as if they were taking a picture together. The camera was set to the back-facing one though, and she double-tapped the screen to zoom in on Mr. Walker sitting alone at the bar inside.
She snapped a few shots and then one actually of them before putting the phone away. Levi knew those files would be sent directly to Erwin's office; it was how Hanji had programmed the phone.
They sat in relative silence for a few minutes; Petra ended up pretty much sprawled across him as he tried to relax, loosen the tension in his shoulders and release the tight grip his fingers had on the edges of the bench. This was the part of being a spy he'd never been good at: when Erwin had picked him off the streets he'd already been something of an expert on hiding and running and killing when he had to; he was excellent at staying beneath the radar during covert operations, but the moment he had to brazenly display an aspect of his personality he didn't have, he became stiff and awkward.
He eyed the woman in his lap, the sunlight gleaming off her orange-gold hair, her skin tanned and freckled and as inviting as the thought of an air-conditioned room right now. She was beautiful, he had to admit, but that was far from the only thing that drew his eyes to her. Even when she was mad at him for some reason, even when everything she said was obviously a lie as they were only playing pretend, she was witty and lively and wonderful and any man who got to marry her would be very lucky indeed.
He just had to keep in mind that he was that lucky man, at least for the time being—even as he noted quick exit routes and details of their surroundings and where all the people around them kept their hands.
He felt her shift before he saw the other man: someone else was approaching the bar counter inside the hotel, someone tall and lanky with olive skin and shaggy dark hair. The person faced them briefly as he sat next to Mr. Walker and Levi blinked.
It was only a boy, albeit a tall one, someone in his late teens, it seemed. This couldn't possibly be—
But even the dullest eyes could have caught the exchange, the sliding of a white envelope across the bar counter, and Petra huffed under her breath. They'd always known TITAN had children in their ranks, but seeing it was another matter entirely.
"I'm kind of missing the water, Adam," she said, glancing up at him. "You want to get back to the beach?"
"Sure," he said; she slid off his lap and straightened, grabbing their bag below the bench.
"I need to head back to the room for a moment though. I forgot my sunglasses."
He quirked an eyebrow at her; they both knew very well what they were supposed to do next and returning to the room was not it. She only stared back at him and after a beat he nodded.
Mr. Walker and the teenager were standing up when Levi and Petra emerged from the doors to the patio. Levi walked past them, keeping his head low, fully intending on disappearing once he exited the lobby and then tailing the teenager, but then from behind him he heard a muffled grunt and then Petra's voice saying, "Oops, sorry!"
He turned and saw her smiling sheepishly at the tall young man, who smiled awkwardly back at her, hand rubbing the back of his neck. "It's okay," he said quietly, and his eyes darted to Mr. Walker, who was a bit ahead of him.
Petra was moving now, brushing past him, but Levi could feel the two TITAN agents' gazes on them and he swallowed, forcing a light grin on his face. "That's how we met," he said, injecting as much fondness in his voice as possible. "We bumped into each other—literally. She's always been a clumsy girl."
She elbowed him but shook her head apologetically at the tall boy again and they moved on. Levi slowed his pace and waited until the elevator doors had shut on Mr. Walker and the teenage kid was gone before rounding on Petra.
"What the hell was that?" he hissed under his breath, and she linked arms with him as if she hadn't a care in the world.
"Come on, Adam; I need my sunglasses."
"Seriously," he said; she smiled sweetly at him like they were discussing beach accessories.
"Put your hand in my pocket, dear."
"Now is not the time to—"
She grabbed his hand and held it close to her left hip—and the small hard rectangle above it. Levi just looked at her, schooling his features into a mask of indifference because it was all he could manage right now.
"Do you know how much training they go through and how fucked you would have been if you were caught—"
"Have a little faith," she said, rolling her eyes. "I've pickpocketed Erwin Smith before while talking to him and he didn't feel a thing."
"You couldn't have been sure that it was—"
"I saw him put it there."
"The original plan was to—"
"This was quicker. Now we can call family emergency and leave earlier, okay? You can stop getting sunburnt."
"Just because he was a kid doesn't mean he's not well-trained—"
They reached the elevators and Petra pressed the up button; it must have been loose because the arrow spun with her finger, facing away to point in a random direction, like it was leading someplace unknown. "I told you. Erwin. Fucking. Smith."
"You should have told me first."
The corner of her mouth lifted at that. "Yeah? Like you tell me everything?"
He could have sworn there was something bitter in her voice, something almost sad in her eyes, but before he could ask her what the hell she was talking about she was all sunshine and smiles again. "Let's just go."
The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside; he followed more reluctantly, wondering why he felt so out of sorts when they'd finally gotten what they came for. The last thing he saw before the elevator doors closed was the teenage girl from the patio appearing in the lobby, staring in their direction, her blue eyes strangely cold.
.
.
.
"Coordinates."
"What?"
"Latitude and longitude coordinates."
Getting debriefed after a mission was something Levi was used to, though depending on the mission involved it could range from nearly pleasant to downright nasty. Most agents did not have a unique history with their superior and sometimes Levi found himself wanting to throttle Erwin Smith.
Now was not one of those times, thankfully, but the head of the CIA's Special Operations Division, TITAN Branch (not that things like this were recorded anywhere; no one wanted to admit yet that one terrorist group had all the world's intelligence services considering the creation of a task force to deal with them) was not being very forthcoming with details. Perhaps it was because this had been a joint mission and Petra Ral's security clearance was nowhere near Levi's, but still; they'd been the ones to retrieve the flash drive.
"Which places?" Levi said when Erwin did not elaborate. "What is TITAN planning? Did this help garner any new information about the Colossal Project at all or was this just a colossal fucking waste of time?"
Petra shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable at the rather impolite way Levi was talking to their superior, but Erwin did not seem perturbed.
"A rural town in Oklahoma, US. A fishing village in Guangzhou, China. A native tribe in the depths of the Amazon rain forest. That's all there is on the flash drive. Lists and lists of coordinates, all pinpointing small settlements around the world rarely found on maps."
"And what do all these places have in common?"
"Our computers are still searching."
"In other words, you have no fucking clue." Levi scowled when Erwin did not respond. "Great. That's just fucking great."
"The two agents you saw weren't higher-ups, but I believe they worked for people who were. This information is important but not invaluable and it is easily replaceable; but since we know nothing about what they are planning every little bit helps."
"So are you going to watch these places now? Do you think TITAN's going to attack them? Is this going to be like that business with the missiles above Colombia or the bombs in Thailand?"
"If you're needed again we'll send you to investigate," Erwin said, and with that Levi knew the conversation was over.
"I trust the mission went smoothly for you, Agent Ral?"
Petra blinked, looking startled at being addressed. Then her face cleared of surprise and she nodded.
"One question, sir. Is there a possibility I may be sent on another operation with Agent Kosta in the future?"
Erwin steepled his fingers and studied her briefly; Levi had the feeling he saw a lot more than just her expression. "If necessary, yes."
She nodded in agreement, but the look on her face spoke volumes for her. Levi gritted his teeth and glared at the plaque on Erwin's desk, wondering why he was so bothered at her obvious distaste at working with him again.
He told himself he didn't care one iota but the moment they were down the hallway, heading for the elevators, he found himself snapping, "What's your problem with me anyway?"
If he were to be honest with himself, it had been bothering him for a while now, the way she'd been keeping him distant. A few months ago if anyone had asked he would have said she was a friend, but now he wasn't sure what she was anymore—they'd been friends but then something had changed, and now she was constantly annoyed or even angry with him, sometimes mocking, usually cold, but despite that he couldn't deny the way his stomach clenched or his breath hitched whenever she stood too close—
"I don't have a problem," she said, but she refused to look at him, and when the elevator doors slid open and they entered, she stayed as far away from him as possible in the small cramped space.
He hit the button for the lobby and they traveled down the floors in utter silence, Petra tapping her fingers against her thigh and Levi's hands shoved in his pockets. It wasn't a peaceful silence, one of two people comfortable with each other's presence—the air was thick, stifling, settling heavily over his shoulders and around his ears; it was tense and uneasy and he hated it.
This particular building was disguised as a typical law firm and he nodded at the girl behind the front desk as he passed—she looked like any other receptionist in the world but none of the firm's actual associates knew about her code breaking skills, her research into biological warfare. For anyone not in the loop the building was as standard as one could get, but Levi could differentiate the CIA agents from the civilians in the lobby without having to look around.
They stepped out into the streets, instantly surrounded by pedestrians on their way home from long days at work, ready to have dinner and shower and sleep and wake up again to their happy, ignorant lives, free of nuclear weapons and terrorist threats. Levi didn't envy them, but standing in the midst of all those people, he couldn't help wondering what it would be like to be one of them.
He and Petra waited at the edge of the sidewalk for the light to turn green so they could cross. They'd take separate trains home and then he wouldn't be seeing much of her again. Glancing over at her, he saw her brow drawn in a frown, her lips pursed, and he suddenly felt terribly weary—she'd been making innuendos at him all day yesterday and now she seemed to hate his guts again, and the whole thing left him feeling very tired. "Petra—" he began.
He wasn't sure what he was planning to say, what he would have said. At that moment something prickled on the back of his neck and he immediately felt wrong, all twisted up inside, like the world had turned upside down when he'd blinked and he was coming back to it opposite from everything else. There were still people walking and laughing and talking in the streets but it was like they'd become indistinct, a blur of sound and color, and as his eyes swept his surroundings, searching for irregularities, he realized what was out of place: a dark shadow on the roof of the building across the street, a brief movement where there shouldn't be any.
But he saw it far too late, and when his brain finally registered the word sniper, he knew it would make no difference anymore.
A dull pain jolted through his back, pinpricks of something sharp stabbing into his elbows—suddenly he was on the ground, Petra's weight on his, her arms pushing him forcefully down into the pavement. Her eyes were fierce, almost wild, her face white, and he realized she'd noticed a split second before he did.
"You're okay," she whispered.
In that moment her face was only inches from his, her breath hot across his lips; he saw the pure relief in her gaze, heard it in her voice, and without thinking he reached for her, moving to gently push her hair out of her eyes, to tuck it behind her ear and say yeah, I'm fine.
She smiled, small and quiet and almost dreamy—and collapsed.
The crowds parted and shifted as people around them began to scream, but he could only stare at the blood pooling around them, a dark stain spreading across the sidewalk, seeping into cracks in the pavement. As if the sight of her blood had numbed his brain, what was obvious took him a few seconds to understand: she'd seen the sniper, had moved to protect him, and gotten hit herself. The sniper had used a silencer; he looked up at the roof to find the shadow had vanished.
He turned her over to inspect the wound—the bullet had entered the middle of her back. He couldn't tell how deep it had gone, he didn't know if it had torn through any vital organs, but he couldn't find an exit wound. He set her down carefully, trying to stem the flow of blood with his bare hands; he could feel the faint, weak throb of her pulse, stuttering more and more by the second, and he knew she was still alive.
And he would keep it that way as long as he could. In a strike of clarity he knew he would do anything to keep her heart beating. He would pay any amount, give up anything; hell, he'd walk barefoot on burning coals if it meant she would live to smile at him another day—
He reached into his pocket for his phone and dialed 911 instead.
.
.
.
The small hospital nestled between the university bookstore and the Carter, Idris & Associates was nondescript, a plain forgettable building with only a few stories and dark tinted windows. People who walked past it every day usually had no idea it was one of the most exclusive private hospitals in the country.
All manners of VIPs were treated here, from silver screen celebrities to corporate CEOs, D.C. politicians to governmental agents. Its proximity to Langley made it the ideal place to send injured CIA agents, as the hospital staff were not only some of the best in their fields, they also worked under confidentiality clauses.
Petra had been rushed to the hospital shortly after she'd been shot; the paramedics had done all they could on the ambulance ride before the surgeons dug the bullet and bone fragments around it out and tried to repair the damage left in its wake. She'd been lucky, they said; the bullet had bounced off two of her ribs but managed to miss her spine, her lungs, and her heart. It had torn through an artery though and some were calling it a miracle she hadn't died from shock or blood loss before they were able to get her into the operating room.
Levi didn't believe in miracles, but this was as close to one as he could imagine. He'd seen plenty of people get shot before, and most of the people shot in the back were left partially paralyzed depending on where in the spine they'd been hit.
He sat in a chair by Petra's hospital bed, elbows on his knees and flipping through a book about trauma and the human psyche without really absorbing the words. He'd visited early on in her stay, when she was unconscious, and then later when she was too weak to say anything, just barely conscious, tubes and wires attached all over her body. Not being a man of many words, he hadn't said much to her, just that he was glad she was alive and that a team was looking into the security breach. No one should have been able to get onto the roof of any building opposite the law firm in the first place.
It had been a few days since he'd visited again—they'd found something they wanted him to look into and a couple of well-designed firewalls had kept him busy—but she looked much better now than she did last time; her eyes were closed, her breathing even, color in her cheeks and no lines of distress in her brow. She was resting and should wake up anytime, but as Levi read the same paragraph over and over he realized he still didn't know what to say to her when she did.
"Levi."
She'd been awake for a few minutes now but had kept her eyes closed; he'd heard the fluctuation in her breathing patterns. "Do you need anything?" he asked, closing his book and setting it aside. "Should I get the nurse?"
"No." Her eyelids fluttered before they opened and her gaze darted to him, bright and alert. "Stay."
He wasn't sure if she was supposed to be moving, but the tubes and wires had lessened and her movements weren't stiff as she pushed herself into a sitting position, so he remained silent. She stared down at her hands for a moment and he looked around the room, trying not to let his eyes linger on the sterile white walls—the memory was still far too clear and he sincerely hoped none of the nurses or therapists recognized him. He focused on the pile of cards and gifts on the table in the corner instead.
"Erd, Auruo, and Gunter sent a box of chocolates and signed a get-well card together," he said, nodding in that direction. "It's the huge ridiculous-looking thing."
Petra's lips twitched. "The three of them always did have a flair for the dramatic, especially when together."
"Judging from the alarming frequency in which they blow things up… the Israeli secret service probably never want to see Erd again."
She laughed, a soft, almost pained sound. It was something he'd heard many times before, though more subdued than usual, and he'd always known it was a possibility—they were spies; it was a hazard of the job—but the thought that he might never have heard it again twisted his heart in a strange way.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, and Levi's head jerked up at that.
"What the hell are you apologizing for?" he demanded, not bothering to hide the incredulity in his voice.
She didn't meet his gaze. "They probably recognized and remembered us because I'd stopped to…"
"It's not your fault," he said. "You did what you thought was right and it worked, didn't it? No one could have known this would happen."
"I haven't dealt with TITAN as much as you; I should've just gone along with what you thought was best. I should've known they'd be—"
"Look," he interrupted, "they probably would have figured out anyway. Besides, it took me no time to get into the hotel security system; they probably would've found our faces in the tapes anyway if they'd bothered to search."
"I still shouldn't have—"
"Petra, you got shot, for fuck's sake. Stop apologizing."
His voice was louder than he intended and he took a deep breath through his nose, releasing it through his mouth. That was something else that had been bothering him, not just the fact that she'd nearly died, but—
"There was only one bullet," he said.
"Maybe the agent figured their cover was blown."
"Or maybe they only meant to shoot one person."
"Yeah." Petra crossed her arms and studied her blankets as if TITAN's secrets were sewn into them. "Me. I'm the one who made it obvious what I was doing."
"But your first action was to push me out of the way."
When she spoke, her words were slow and careful. "I wasn't thinking."
That was bullshit and they both knew it. Their job was to think; they were always thinking. Thinking and acting, which were more similar than most people realized. Her thoughts were embedded in her actions, and she always knew what she was doing even as she did it. They both did.
Levi didn't want to have this conversation here, not now—it hadn't been a week since her surgery yet—but he didn't know when she'd get out of the hospital and she'd probably be given at least a month's leave to recuperate, and he didn't know when he'd see her again. "We can debate who the bullet was for later if you want," he said. "Why did you push me out of the way first thing?"
She snorted at that but didn't answer. He stared hard at her: despite the near-death experience she'd just had, she was strong and looked almost as healthy as ever; her hair shone, her skin fairly glowed, and he could almost imagine she was just getting out of bed, ready for another day at the beach. Her heart monitor was steady and if it weren't for the hospital gown and the few tubes and wires still feeding into her skin, he'd think she was ready to leave already.
He thought of her bitter smile in the elevator and her pointed comments, the challenging way she sometimes looked at him and all her undercover insinuations; he shook his head and said, "I know you don't like me, so why would you do that?"
"Oh my god," Petra groaned, flopping back onto her pillows. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and said in a tone of wonder, "Men really are idiots. Even if they're spies. They're still complete idiots."
Levi frowned. "That doesn't—"
She propped herself up again and glowered at him. "You are such an idiot. You are such a fucking idiot."
"I—"
"I care about you, okay? I've cared about you a lot even before that time we slept together and you wouldn't acknowledge it."
He should have been surprised, but he wasn't. Part of him had probably always known, even when he told himself he had no idea, and hearing the truth from her was more like remembering than learning something new.
"I was drunk," he said. "I thought you would have said something—"
She laughed at that, a sharp, sudden sound bordering on hysterical. "And ruin our friendship when you wouldn't say anything? I considered you a friend, you know. Still do, really. Friends are supposed to tell each other things."
"What does that have to do with—"
"So I know you were drunk and probably hadn't meant to get so carried away, and that you probably didn't really remember anything, but I… I just told you, I've cared about you a lot for a long time now and I know it meant nothing to you, but… it meant something to me, okay?"
Her voice faded into a half-whisper at the end and she swallowed, glancing away from him to stare out the window. It was late afternoon, the sunlight still bright as it seeped through the crack in the curtains, illuminating dust motes in the air. She closed her eyes as if steeling herself and then turned back to him, jaw set and eyes resolute.
"So I shouldn't be mad that you didn't remember, or never said anything. I know… I know we don't have the safest job in the world and I should never expect anything. But we're still supposed to be friends and friends tell each other things."
He was perfectly capable of compartmentalizing his mind into focusing on various tasks at once, but right now all his attention was on Petra—and he had a hard time understanding what she was saying anyway. "What didn't I tell you?"
"I knew that last mission had been bad for you," she said, and he was startled to hear her voice catch. "You never said anything about it and I just knew it was bad. But I didn't know how bad until—it was dark in the room; I didn't see anything until the next morning when I woke up and you were still asleep—"
Oh. Right.
"I wasn't that rough with you, but your back was all bloody so I must've reopened some wounds—"
"It's okay," he said tightly, and she shook her head.
"It's not okay. I've never seen so many scars all in one place, and the depth of some of the marks—Erwin should have given you far longer off than he did."
Levi didn't have a response to that and Petra just shook her head again. "Why didn't you tell me you were tortured?"
Because those days he'd spent locked in a cell resembling a box more than a room weren't something he ever wanted to think about again. Because he'd never been one to complain about something that had already happened and there was no use talking about it; it wouldn't change anything. Because he'd been hurt before, many times, and that had just been another instance—worse than the others, yes, but still just another instance—and if Erwin had been right and he'd needed therapists after that, then he might as well have one for every fucking day of his entire goddamn life.
He settled for, "Because it didn't matter."
"It did matter!" To his alarm, her eyes were beginning to look misty. "It still matters. I told you, I cared about you a lot, I still do, and just because our job and lives are dangerous doesn't mean you can't do simple things like tell your friends when you were hurt so badly."
She was the one in the hospital bed but she looked so worked up, and her heart monitor was speeding up. "Petra, you just got out of surgery; we can talk about this later. You need to rest—"
"To hell with resting," she muttered, though she did take a calming breath and unclench her fists. "Yeah, see; I got shot and you're here with me. After you got back from the mission no one told us anything. I didn't even know you were in the hospital. And afterwards you just acted like everything was fine. You should've let us help you. We're your friends. I'm your friend. And I… you already know, I've just said it like five times, but I care for you more than I should, and… it's okay that you don't feel the same way. But… I know you've been alone for most of your life and needing help is perfectly fine, and you should've told me."
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Sometimes he thought he should know what to say in any situation by now, considering all the roles he'd taken on in his years as an undercover agent, but at the most crucial times words always seemed to fail him. Various thoughts were scattered throughout his brain, forming little sentences with no correlation—death and torture are just hazards of the job, you know that; I haven't been alone most of my life, I just kept very unpleasant company; and maybe the most important one: you're wrong, I care for you more than I should too.
He didn't know how to organize his thoughts any more than he knew what to say next, so he didn't say anything. In their world, thoughts were made apparent in actions, in those fleeting decisions, and before he knew what he was doing he reached out and took her hand.
"You shouldn't care for me," he said quietly; her breathing sped up and her eyes widened as he laced his fingers with hers. Her skin was smooth, soft, like cream, like silk, something pure and unblemished he didn't deserve, and he looked her in the eye before saying one of the most honest things he'd said in a long time: "I'm fucked up."
She was smiling now, not a faint or bitter or fake smile; it was unrestrained, a joyful curve of her lips, like dawn over a still lake. "If you're fucked up then so am I; our jobs are fucked up. Our lives are too. This whole world is; that's why our job is to try and make it better."
"One fucking mission at a time," he said, and she brought her other hand up to rest on his, squeezing gently.
"Everything starts slowly. We can figure it out."
He bent down to kiss her knuckles and she bent her head too, pressing her forehead to his when he looked up at her again. He could feel the warmth of the tears slipping down her face and when she smiled against his lips, he smiled back.
.
.
.
A/N: So that's all for this fic, but I have other random ideas for this AU that I may or may not write out someday depending on if I can properly sort out my thoughts about it. Stuff about the Colossal Project and Eren Jaeger and the like; idk if anyone would be interested? It'd probably be a multichapter fic if I ever wrote it.
Anyway, I hope this was not too farfetched or lacking in common sense; let me know if anything was. Despite being a big fan of spy novels I've never retained much information from them and know nearly nothing about espionage.
Also I think Petra would be really good at sleight-of-hand, which translates to pickpocketing in this AU. Like she'd smile sweetly and compliment you while reaching into your pocket and stealing your wallet without your noticing a thing. This has happened before to someone I know when he went to Europe actually so THIS IS PLAUSIBLE OKAY. :)
I know Levi's last name (or most likely his last name idk if Isayama will pull something else y'know) has been revealed in the manga already but I've got ideas for the future of this AU that incorporate those revelations and right now it makes sense for his last name to be something different. It's based on James Kosta by the way; Levi will never be a video game entrepreneur in this AU but the whole teen hacker/emancipation from parents/worked for CIA thing made me think it works for him.