One Beautiful Weakness
Nile only ever had one weakness. Nile's weakness had a name. Her name was Casey Walker.
Casey Walker was a girl. She was a beautiful girl at that. But her death sentence was not that she was a beautiful girl. It was that she was Nile's beautiful girl.
Nile never planned on falling in love in Italy. He planned to train with Scorpia. He planned to become the world's most feared and littlest know assassin. He planned to isolate himself in his studies, become the freak with the funny skin who never talked.
But Casey Walker changed that. Nile was on duty at Ca' Vedova. Casey was reluctantly attending a party with her parents. She never planned to get lost going to the bathroom. He never planned to stray from his assigned lookout. They never planned to meet. But it was always the same place. She would never learn exactly where the ladies' room was. He would never remember to not make that last left. They would always have the same conversation, but every time, it became more. And more. And more.
It was the same conversation, until the one where Casey's mask slipped and Nile saw her eyes. The one where she mentioned without thinking how pretty she thought the splotches on his face were. The one where he got lost while escorting her. The one when they kissed. To one when they fell in love.
It was only the next month - maybe just two parites later - when Nile got the news. He had a mission – his second real mission. The first one had been flawless, perfect, and everyone expected that perfection again, Nile included. Then he was briefed. The daughter of one of Scorpia's most prestigious clients was threatening to expose her parents to the law… and with them, the whole organization. Nile was assigned to remove the troublesome girl from the equation. He had no problem with that until he was given the file with her name on it. Walker, Casey.
She was going to visit the family's vacation home in France. She was going on a helicopter. And Nile was going to kill her on that trip. The helicopter would crash. She would die. A tragic accident. Business as usual.
And Nile was going to kill her, because this was a high priority mission, and Nile was the best. He scored perfectly on all of his classes. And Nile wasn't afraid of anything at all.
He would not fail. Could not fail. But he loved her. That was Nile's weakness: Love.
When the time came, he boarded the chopper as a bodyguard, masked, of course. He carried a Kahr P9 pistol with two shots: one for the girl, on for the pilot. Only as many as needed. There would be no mistakes.
They were over the French Alps when he acted. Slowly, he donned a parachute, not drawing attention to himself. Mere seconds after all the straps had been checked, he reached into a pocket. The girl would have to go first; he needed the pilot in control for as long as possible so he could jump safely. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger, with as little emotion as he could muster. It was at that moment when his ski mask – covering his disfiguring spots that she had found so endearing – slipped, and she turned around. The bullet hit her right between the eyes, and the look on her face was one of shock as she saw who her killer was.
Her body fell backwards, almost in slow motion, out of the opened door of the chopper. He could not help but lean out, watching her fall until she was nothing more than a speck against the blanket of white, then nothing at all. He turned as though in a trance to shoot the pilot, and hurled himself out after her.
It took all of his mental capabilities and hardened toughness to remember to pull the parachute free. He was so tempted to simply fall, and die with her. So tempted. But he had to pull through. After all, she was his one weakness, wasn't she? So now he should be fearless, free, totally untouchable, right?
Wrong. Because from that day forward, Nile watched her disappear, falling, over every roof, ever ledge, every height that he saw.
Nile was afraid of heights.
Nile had tried to put himself first, and all he got was second.
Nile was never first again.
Nile still had a weakness. It just wasn't as beautiful as she was.
Nile is an awesome character, and there weren't enough fics about him. Besides, I always thought his weakness would be love, before the scene on the balloon. So I muhed the two together to get this little drabble thing. Thanks for reading it.