Part 4

(Or why you must never, ever, ever wake Aya.)

Yuushi walked into the hospital with a bunch of flowers almost as big as he was and walked up to the desk. "Hi, I'm looking for Aya Fujimiya."

The nurse looked up at him, then looked at her clipboard. Then she squinted at him. "She's on the third floor."

"Yuushi," Yohji said as he came in, "you brought Omi flowers."

"No," Yuushi said, "they're for a friend," he handed them to the nurse, "can you put these in her room for her please," he gave the nurse a winning smile that was completely wasted on her, "thank you."

She took the flowers with a frown muttering the words "I'm a nurse not a florist" under her breath.

"I'll take you into see Omi," Yohji said watching the nurse leave with a worried glance, "and away from the scary Kritiker nurses." He looked at Yuushi critically, "I haven't seen you in ages and ages," he said, "how are the rest of you? And don't say anything incriminating in there, Omi's sharing a room with his boyfriend."

"But he's only a baby." Yuushi protested. "He's practically still in diapers, what is he now, twelve, thirteen?."

"He's seventeen now," Yohji said, "or is he eighteen now," he thought about it, "no, he's seventeen, I'm sure of it," he stopped outside the door, "I'll ask Aya, he'll know." He leant against the door, "As soon as I'm not in front of Omi, okay."

Yuushi just nodded and decided to back away slowly.

In the shadow of the window Aya slept, sitting up in bed with their laptops open two teenaged hackers were typing furiously, well one handed. One was left handed, and the other right handed as a cast and the other in a sling. Both looked like they had come off worse in the fight with the car that had hit them, scuffed, bruised and bandaged. When Yohji opened the door Omi's hand left the keyboard and pressed his index finger to his lip and shushed him.

"Aya's asleep." Nagi hissed, "be quiet."

"Wotcha doing?" Yuushi said, coming in. "Hacking the defence grid?"

Nagi just smirked. Then clicked a button.

"You sank my battleship." Omi said despondently.

The nurse bustled in and opened the blinds, then jumped back in horror at the katana that had not only mysteriously appeared but pressed itself against her throat. "Shi-ne," he murmured, one eye was open, the other glued shut with sleep and there was a line of drool down his chin.

"Glad to see that that didn't change." Yuushi said, "hi," he said to Nagi, "I'm Yuushi, me and Omi go way back."

"Hey, Yuushi," Omi said with a grin, "thanks for coming to visit me, this is my boyfriend, Nagi Naoe."

"Do you know that name sounds familiar," Yuushi told him as the nurse ran out of the room crying and Aya tried his best to work out where his potential victim was with the limited depth perception he had with one eye open and blinking furiously. "Well, pleased to meet you Nagi-chan, I'm sure the boys have told you to take good care of our little Omittchi," his tone was pleasantly conversational and then dipped low and dark as he furrowed his eyebrows together, "or else we'll take you into a back alley and dismember your stinking corpse."

"I thought Crashers was non-lethal." Nagi said brightly, closing the lid of his laptop.

"Guys," Yuushi protested, "you coulda said the kid was one of us."

"What and miss the opportunity to see you make a fool of yourself?" Yohji commented, "not a chance in hell."

"So, what group are you in?" Yuushi asked, trying to make conversation, Nagi looked at Yohji to see if it was okay to tell him whilst Aya blinked and yawned trying to wake up and realise where he was.

"Schwartz." Nagi answered.

"As in evil Schwartz that works for Esset?" Yuushi was pleasantly surprised, "what is it about the agencies that they have no respect for child labour laws? So, Nagi-chan, as you're getting out of the hospital today, do you want me to run you home as well?" He sat down on the end of the bed, "I have this huge estate car from Germany and there's plenty of room."

Aya pushed past Yohji into the corridor where a nurse squealed and ran away, it was only then Yohji realised he was still dragging his katana behind him, making the mental note never ever to wake Aya forcefully again he stood in his way, "Ayan, how about you go sit down and watch the chibis and I'll get us some coffee, ne?"

Aya looked baffled for a moment. "Okay, Yotan." And still dragging the point of the katana behind him Aya went back into the hospital room.

"Is that normal?" One of the nurses asked.

"Yeah, he's always like that when someone wakes him up." Yohji replied. "You get used to it."

"How can you get used to it?" She asked, she was more than a little scared.

"That's easy," Yohji told her with his favourite grin as he worked out that she was actually very pretty, "You don't wake him up."

Crawford came into the hospital with a small suitcase and two cups of coffee, both with lids. He looked tired, he hadn't shaved, and it was doubtful that he had slept. In fact he looked like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. What made the detail worse was that he was wearing jogging pants and an oversized tee shirt and he almost didn't look like Crawford at all. When Yohji first saw him he barely recognised him.

"Crawford?" He asked turning away from the pretty nurse, who's name it turned out was Tae, and looking at him as if to work out whether or not he was packing heat, or if he had the right person.

"Kudoh," Crawford growled in response.

"Are you here to pick up Nagi?" Yohji asked, "because if you don't mind me saying so, you look like death that's been stuck in the microwave for a few moments on defrost, hardly your elegant best?"

"Says the illegitimate love child of David Lee Roth and Adam Ant," Crawford snarled.

Yohji put his hands to his head and whimpered, "but I have nice hair."

"Where's Fujimiya? I need to talk to him."

"Sir," Tae began, "he's just woke up, he's a little."

"Cranky?" Crawford began, "I've run across him cranky before, I need to talk to him." He gave Yohji the best glint off his glasses he could manage, "in private."

"Well, sir, I was thinking homicidal." Tae ventured, "I'll just go and get him."

"It's a good job you brought him coffee." Yohji murmured, still holding his hair, "and I look more like a young Gavin Rossdale, I have nice hair, I do."

Crawford just glinted his glasses again and declined to comment.

Aya didn't walk into the corridor as much as lumber, like a student for a nine o'clock lecture he moved through the ancient method of pointing himself in the direction he wanted to go and leaning forward, knowing he would either walk or fall flat on his face. Crawford stopped him short by holding out a polystyrene cup, "it has two extra shots."

Aya may not have been awake enough to understand Japanese but the strange man in the glasses had offered him the food from the heavens, and he peeled back the lid and took a deep breath. The coffee forced him to blink it was that strong. "I need a favour, well two favours really" Crawford said as Aya sipped the coffee, savouring the shot of caffeine as it was delivered. "Takatori," Aya grimaced understanding that word, "has a business associate in town, Bruce Wayne, and he wants me to look after him whilst he's here, but that means I have to trust Schuldig and Farfarello to look after Nagi whilst he's sick." Aya pulled a face at that suggested. "Exactly, and Takatori wants me to speak to the lovely geisha that I am dating to arrange a party."

Aya made a gutteral noise that might have been brains.

"Sorry," Crawford said adjusting his glasses.

"Takatori," Aya repeated as the caffeine reopened neural pathways that were disrupted when he was woken suddenly from a deep sleep.

"You can't kill him yet, we still need him, but you can later, I promise." Crawford hoped that was suitably conciliatory, "so can Nagi stay with you, he's going to need a few days bedrest and I can hardly leave him with dumb and dumber."

"Hn," Aya managed.

Crawford smiled, "Thanks, and the party."

"We'll see." Aya said. "I might just use it as an excuse to kill him."

"After the night I had, I might just let you."

Author's Note

Okay in all my repeated iterations of who Batman and Robin were I kinda forgot to mention, Crashers will be in this story, so I'm blathering on and didn't introduce you. We have Reiichi - Bishop, their leader, Masato - Rook, Yuushi - Knight and Naru - pawn. They call Persia King and their secretary is Queen. They are characters from an earlier version of Weiss called Crashers Knight and Ran which shows Ran Fujimiya as a member of Kritiker, standing in for Rook as the Red Rook, he left for reasons unknown which vary in fanon from didn't settle, killed someone, took the blame for someone else killing someone, to they all died. In my version he just got plain promoted. Nothing fancy. With information gleaned from the internet Ran has been in three groups, one which was in Sendai where they were betrayed from within (this is where he learned ikebana) Crashers (short for Party Crashers, they actually appear in Gluhen by the way) and then Weiss 3. All straight. As I said, any questions, just ask me, and if I don't know, I'll find out.