Apologies for the delay! February until May is my busiest time of the year but rest assured that I'm still getting the chapters out as fast as I can! Enjoy!
Quick note to The Titan's Shadow- The real-life sniper that I based Sharpshooter's sniper off of was the M110 sniper. Having said that, I wouldn't say that Sharpshooter has a M110 sniper; it's more like a custom-made sniper that was designed by Sharpshooter to suit his needs as a vigilante. Thanks for the review and kind words!
Nothing...again. No fingerprints, no blood from them, no hair follicles, absolutely nothing. Keith was beyond frustrated, but at the same time he was used to this. Sharpshooter and Winger had successfully stopped the Galra from getting a weapons shipment from the docks last night before the police arrived. Last night went just like any of their other ops, they secured the shipment, tied up the bad guys, then anonymously tipped off the police so they could come for the cleanup, while the two vigilantes left behind no evidence that they were actually there.
"Nothing?" Shiro asked him, the shipment of various firearms had already been taken into police custody and the people that were left were properly arrested, now the two detectives were trying to find any clues that would help in their case.
"Nothing." Keith affirmed.
"It's strange to me. These guys do good work, but we still have to try to catch them."
"Well unless the mayor suddenly makes being a vigilante legal, we have to chase them."
"We all know that it won't become legal, because then we'd get both the good and the bad vigilantes."
It was true, just about everyone supported what these two men were doing, but the simple fact remained that it was still technically illegal.
"At least we now know how Sharpshooter's shells disappear, but I still can't believe that after all this time we've never found anything. Not even part of a fingerprint, or a hair even. Despite knowing for a fact that they've been hurt on their ops, but we've never gotten any of their blood."
"There's also rarely any security footage of them." Shiro finished for Keith, "I wonder."
"What? What clicked?"
"Think about it. If you were fighting for your life, or for the lives of others, would you have time to notice that you lost a hair? If you're busy trying to escape from your enemies, are you going to be worried about where your blood ends up? If you do escape from them, are you going to be in any condition to risk going back there to remove it in what is usually a short amount of time before the police arrive?"
"Of course not. You're exact point?" Keith had a pretty good idea where Shiro was going with this, but he thought it was better to allow the man to work out his thought process uninterrupted.
"They must have someone else working with them. They have to. There's no way they could possibly notice these practically microscopic details without another set of eyes at least. Maybe this person is also the one that deals with the cleanup."
"It would make sense. It's obvious even. However, like you said, it only takes a short amount of time for the police to show up, so how could one person do all of that without being seen?"
"Well, it could be more than one person." Shiro muttered, before falling into thought. Keith did have a solid argument, and almost tore down his theory with one relatively simple question. Almost being the key word.
"Wait! It all makes sense!"
"What does?"
"We received an anonymous tip, and that's what led us here, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well look around you! There's no evidence of the exact people who were here, yet we know it was the vigilantes due to the destruction scattered around from Sharpshooter's gun, and because the bad guys are all tied up. The question is though, how did no one hear this? This wasn't a small, stealth run. Our phone line should have been blowing up with calls concerning this, yet we got one singular phone call. Now tell me, when was the last time we didn't get an anonymous call after one of their ops?"
"Off the top of my head, I can't think of a time." Keith felt like kicking himself, Shiro, and everyone else in the precinct in that moment.
"If they can control the phone lines, they can restrict the calls that we receive, giving them plenty of time to deal with the cleanup before we even knew what was going on."
"Not only that, if they can listen to the calls, they could use that to gather information and they'd have the ability to know what some of the cops' current locations are based on the information that the operators would be telling people calling about other issues."
"Someone who could do that would easily be able to hack into security cameras and erase or alter any footage of the vigilantes in actions, which would explain why they're never seen."
"We're gonna need Pidge."
"Yo, Pidgey! What's up?"
"Don't call me that, but, hey, did you hear? They hit another weapons shipment just a few hours ago."
"How would I know about that if it was that recent? If it's not in the news, it's safe to say that I didn't hear about it." Adam glanced over at Matt's words, he knew he was talking to his sister, but it always made him uneasy when they spoke of vigilante activities.
"Right. Sorry." Pidge laughed on the other side of the line, her and her brother spoke about everything, and Matt was always aware of the current events that Pidge sometimes forgot that he didn't always find things out at the same time as her.
"What about it?" Matt pressed.
"Nothing special so far, Keith and Shiro are there checking it out now. It's just that there's been a lot of weapons shipments recently, it's making me think that the Galra are up to something."
"I'm sure it's fine, Pidge. There's been an increase in shipments because those two have been stopping more of them, right? Don't worry about it."
"Yeah, that's true. Thanks, Matt. I've got to go; they should be getting back soon. Talk to you later?"
"You got it. Bye, Pidgeon!" Matt swiftly hung up before Pidge could retort. He was sure that he'd get a nice text about that soon.
"What's up on their end?" Adam asked when Matt stuffed his phone into his pocket and sat across from him.
"Nothing special, usual detectives. One thing though..."
"What?"
"You know how I said that the Galra have to be planning something big even though we can't find any evidence of that?"
"Yes. You say that about every ten minutes. It's rather annoying actually."
"Right, well now I'm convinced even more. Pidge doesn't actively follow the Galra patrols, shipments, and everything else like we do, and yet even she thinks that they're up to something."
"So maybe you're not as crazy as you seem. What are we supposed to do though? We've got nothing to go off of."
"Hey, I am that crazy, and I'm proud of that. How dare you doubt my craziness." The famous Winger rolled his eyes while Matt put his hand to his chest and feigned serious offence and disgust at him.
"Then use your craziness that you love so much to figure out what they are up to! You can use any of my drones if you need to. All except for Hawk, I haven't repaired his left wing yet."
"I got it. You go sleep."
"I'm fine, I'll just-"
"Don't you even think about it! You and Lance both looked dead on your feet when you got back here."
"He's asleep, I'm fine now. Besides there's too much to do right now."
"Adam. Look at me."
"Matt-"
"No, listen. I'm okay, you're okay, and Lance is okay. You've got to stop beating yourself up over what happened to him."
"I wasn't there! That's why he got captured, that's why he got hurt. It's my fault!" Adam had grabbed the front of Matt's shirt then, he had helped trained Lance, he had helped to turn him into Sharpshooter, but after an argument that had happened between the two, Adam left, telling Lance to quit, saying that he was too childish to make it as a vigilante.
Adam regretted that decision with everything he had; three days after he had left, the Galra took the ten-year old girl that led to Sharpshooters capture and the burned down building. Lance escaped both the Galra and the fire on his own, before being found passed out a couple blocks away by Matt. Adam had raced back to Altea City as fast as he possibly could when he heard the news; Lance was in bad shape- physically, mentally, and emotionally. He refused to speak about what had happened to him, leaving the other two men to guess about the events based off of the injuries he had acquired during that time. Lance only had one question that night, the only time he spoke was to ask if he had succeeded, to ensure that the little girl was safe.
"You're here now. You know he doesn't blame you. It was a long recovery, but he's okay, we all are." Matt spoke gently as he grabbed Adam's wrists to start removing them from his shirt. The other man had hung his head to hide the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, allowing himself to be slowly led to a bed set up in the corner. Adam collapsed onto the bed exhausted, the two vigilantes had been working extra shifts recently and his body was reminding him of that now.
Matt ensured that Adam was asleep before checking on the still sleeping, still unmoving Lance before going back to his tech set up. It was true, Lance didn't blame Adam, he never did. Matt, however; did for a while. It was also true that Lance probably wouldn't have been captured if Adam hadn't walked out that day.
After two months had passed, the city was declining. The criminals grew bolder, the cops were having more trouble, the city was losing business- all because two certain vigilantes hadn't been seen. Lance was better, and had started speaking freely again, but he was in no position to go back out there; it was then that Matt decided that Altea City needed to have Sharpshooter, and that wouldn't happen without him forgiving Adam.
Matt had planned everything out; Adam would alternate posing as Sharpshooter and being Winger. Winger was good at keeping the criminals in check and made the streets safe once again; but Sharpshooter gave Altea City the hope they had lost, the only reason the people had the courage to walk those streets again was because of their born-and-breed hero being present.
When Lance recovered, several months later, the mantel was happily returned to him. The three of them fell into a steady rhythm to the point that any onlookers would have no idea of the massive strains between them only a few months prior. Lance had mostly returned to his cheerful self, except for the occasional moment; Adam never fully got over his guilt and struggled more often, but never in front of Lance himself.
Matt did what he could for them, it had been almost a full year since that incident and the broken pieces were still being picked up, but they were here. They had survived the storm and now focused everything they had into freeing Altea City from the Galra. They wouldn't fail. That was Matt's job as Watcher after all.
Thank you for the amazing support that this fic has received! I apologize for the shorter chapter, but I feel that important topics were covered in order for the story to progress, and that felt like the natural ending to me. Chapter 4 is already in the works. See you next time!
~Kiera540