The corridors in the abandoned office building were long, maze-like and submersed in the dark, angular shadows cast by desks and doorways on the walls.
It was the perfect place to hide.
It was not a perfect place to be looking for something you weren't even sure was there.
Tony inched along the wall, holding his gun steady in front of him, checking each and every room for people and for that damned briefcase.
He slowly backed out of what was probably the hundredth room he had searched, and resisted the urge to sigh. If there was someone here, he had to make as little noise as possible.
Kicking that cabinet over there in frustration was out of the question too, then.
He leaned against the wall by the next corner and took a moment to focus even though he seriously doubted there was any point.
Then he swung around, gun at the ready...
And found himself staring down the barrel of different gun, held just inches from his face.
He felt his heart leap in panic.
Then recognized the owner of the gun.
Michelle.
And his own gun was pointing right at her forehead.
She looked just as shocked as he was; wide-eyed and rigid.
It took a moment for either of them to say anything; the only sound was that of their breathing slightly faster than they should have been.
Tony contemplated lowering his gun, but something was holding him back.
"What are you doing here?" Michelle asked finally.
"Jack got a tip-off, asked me to check it out. What are you doing here?"
"We were tipped off too. I was in the area."
"You find anything?"
Michelle sighed. "No." She at last moved her gun away from Tony's face, though she still held it close to her side with both hands. "You?"
"No." It took him a moment to lower his own gun, but he did.
They stared at each other uncertainly, unsuccessfully trying to read each other's faces in the dim light.
"You come here alone?" Tony asked.
"No. My assistant's checking the upper floors; the driver's still in the car."
Goes without saying that I'm alone.
"We should work together," Michelle said in a businesslike manner. "It'll be safer."
"I don't need your help." He turned away slightly, trying to ignore her and the things she made him remember.
"Tony..." There was exasperation in her voice the same exasperation which had been in almost every word she had said to him for months now.
It was really starting to piss him off.
"Just leave me alone, alright?" He gesticulated angrily with the hand that held his gun. "I thought you were good at that."
"No, Tony! It's not safe." Her own gun also held in just one hand now, the other hand vaguely reaching out as she began to take a step forward before stopping herself.
"I've been perfectly safe here without you up to now. Unless you mean that you're not safe, but after what happened last time I tried to protect you, I'm not really sure I wanna do it again."
"Tony..."
"And dammit, stop saying my name! You never mean anything good by it anymore."
"Maybe because you never give me any reason to say anything good anymore!" she shouted.
She was getting angry.
Good. He could deal with anger.
"Well I'm sorry if I'm not Mr. Cheerful right now, but as you may have noticed my life has gone all to hell!"
"That's just an excuse Tony, you just don't want to get off your ass and do something about it!"
"It's not that easy!"
Not as easy as guns. Guns were easy. He could feel the weight of the gun in his palm, fingers gripping metal too tightly...
"I know it's not easy, but you won't even try! You just give up before you even begin!"
"Yeah, because there's no point in trying! No one's gonna hire me. The moment they see what I was convicted of they'll just throw my application out the window."
"You don't know that. You have contacts..."
"And even if I did get a job, what then? Sit at a desk all day being bored out of my skull? How would that be better, huh? Do you know how it feels to know that you can never do the kind of job you actually occasionally like again?"
"Tony..."
"No, you don't. Y'know, I should've just let Saunders kill you if all you were gonna do was abandon me. Hell, that was what you wanted me to do, wasn't it? Everybody would've been happier if I'd just let you die, but no, I had to go and save you, because I was under the impression that what we had actually meant something!"
Michelle's eyes were wide with hurt by now, their whites made more prominent by the darkness. He could tell she knew exactly what he meant and didn't mean by what he had just said. "Don't be stupid, Tony, of course it meant something." The words were said with a calm that still betrayed the anger roaring ever louder beneath the surface.
"Stupid now, am I? Well, I guess that might explain why I married you!"
"You married me because you loved me!" Her turn to gesticulate with the gun; movements which were magnified by the shadows she and her weapon cast on the plain white wall beside her.
"Well, maybe I didn't!"
He said it just to spite her and he knew she knew that before the words were even completely out of his mouth; he was just lashing out but he didn't care anymore because who really cared about anything anyway?
"That's complete crap, Tony. You loved me then and you still love me now!" Gun still waving in his direction, never pointing directly at him but still always threatening, heavy with its simple power.
"Right, Michelle."
She abruptly threw the gun on the floor, gripped him by the arms and pushed him angrily against the wall. "You moron!" Tears started to fill her eyes as she dug her fingers into his arms. "You stupid, fucking moron!"
And he suddenly grabbed her by the waist, pulled her roughly against his body and kissed her.
He didn't know why he'd done it, but once he felt her lips against his he couldn't make himself let go. He tightened his hold on her, crushing her against him so hard he was sure he must be hurting her, but she didn't fight him off, didn't even utter a word of protest, and he was worried that he'd cut off her air supply or something before he felt her fingers tightly clutching the hair on the back of his head and he realized she was kissing him back.
His fingers instinctively let go of the gun he still held clutched in his hand, and as it clattered loudly to the floor Tony pushed Michelle towards the wall opposite, almost tripping over her feet in his haste, his lips never leaving hers. There was a muffled thump as her body hit the wall but he didn't stop pushing, and Michelle groaned and pushed back, and he could feel her elbow digging into his back before she moved her hand and it was suddenly under his shirt, practically clawing at his skin, fingernails pushed too far into flesh but please God don't stop...
He slipped his own fingers under her jacket, under her blouse, to the top of her spine and then gliding roughly down the smooth skin of her back before he moved them to the front and pushed them underneath her bra, grasping at her breasts, making her moan loudly and start fumbling with the zipper on his jeans.
He quickly slid his hands down again, under her waistband and then around to undo the single button, then the zipper, knowing that as soon as he was free of his own clothing he wanted to be inside of her, to feel her surrounding him completely, engulfing him.
He pulled her pants and panties down in one swift motion, wrapping his arms around her back again as she kicked them away and rid him of his boxers as well before wrapping her legs around him and looking into his eyes.
He heard her gasp as he thrust himself into her, still gazing up at him with a look which said what Tony had only just begun to think:
What are we doing? How did the hell did we get here?
But they couldn't stop now, and he could tell Michelle agreed when he moved and she exhaled loudly as she picked up his rhythm; they were both far too aroused, too desperate for each other after all those months spent apart. He lifted her up further, pinning her between himself and the wall, moving frantically, afraid that if he slowed down he would stop to think and then everything would come tumbling down, beyond repair.
It seemed like mere moments before he felt her begin to spasm around him, and she clutched still harder at his back, gasped more loudly into his neck; he was now only dimly aware of her nails drawing blood, of her teeth pressing into his shoulder, sensations growing ever stronger and culminating in a combination of pleasure and pain almost too intense to bear, overshadowing all his other senses for one long, whirling instant before he realized that he had let go of her and that they were leaning against each other, trying to stop gasping for air.
Michelle put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself and looked up at him with wide eyes and open mouth, and he noticed for the first time that there were tears on her face, and he wasn't sure if the wetness trickling down his own cheeks was from her eyes or his.
He could tell she was trying to say something, but she kept stopping herself before she did. Perhaps it was better that way, Tony thought. One wrong word could ruin everything for good.
He absent-mindedly tucked a strand of displaced hair behind her ear and the corners of her mouth twitched upwards in a small, impulsive smile.
Tony smiled back.
They just stood there for a moment, enjoying the simple silence.
Then Michelle's cellphone rang and jolted them both back to reality.
"Dammit," she said, kneeling down and reaching for her pants. She began to pull them back on with one hand as she took the phone out of a pocket and answered: "Dessler."
Tony's eyes wandered to his own clothes; he suddenly felt vulnerable and foolish without them. Turning away from Michelle, he began to get dressed.
The wheels in his head slowly began to turn again, and with them came a deluge of fears and uncertainties he really wasn't ready to deal with yet.
What the fuck did we just do?
And what do we do now
"Okay, I'll be right there," Michelle said into the phone before snapping it shut. Tony turned to look at her again just as she knelt down to retrieve her gun from where she had thrown it. "My assistant's found someone," she told him, holstering her weapon. "I'm going to see if he'll give us anything useful. Do you want to come?"
He should, he knew; Jack had sent him here with exactly that kind of thing in mind. But Tony trusted Michelle to do whatever should be done, and he really didn't think he could function right now without some alone time to get things back in order in his mind...
"No," he told her. "I'll check the rest of the rooms. I'll tell you if I find anything."
"Okay," she said after a moment's hesitation, and he couldn't tell from her expression if she really wanted him to go with her or not.
But there was just a hint of a smile in her eyes as she turned away, and he suddenly, inexplicably knew that he would call her in the morning, the sun would shine, he would hear affection in her voice again and everything would be alright.
He took his gun in his hands and went back to work.
The End