When I was typing up the oneshot for yesterday, I totally forgot that I wanted to add this part. With all my writing, I usually write it out long hand, then edit while I type, but I don't have much time, so I'm just going to write it on the computer. Sorry if it's not very good.

Promises

"What happened?" Merida asked.

Jack cringed, both at the question, and at the pain in his shoulder. He had not planned on getting shot tonight. And now that the adrenaline high had worn off, the pain was coming in full force.

"My cover was blown," he said.

"Would you stop fidgeting?" Astrid snapped, her hold on his shoulder tightening until it felt more like a steel vice than a hand. Which did not help with the pain.

He did his best to hold still as Astrid went back to applying antiseptic to his wound. Medicine was not her specialty – but at the moment she was the most qualified to bandage the injury. Hiccup had vanished to wrap up some final details before they left, otherwise he was the one who normally handled things like this.

He, Astrid, and the pain in his shoulder, were sat on the edge of the tub in the hotel bathroom, while she cleaned him up – it would be easier to clean blood off the tub and tiles than the beds or the carpets. Merida and Eret were just outside the door, watching.

"How did that happen?" Merida asked.

He really wished Merida would stop asking questions. Because his answers would only raise more questions – ones that he didn't want to answer.

He glanced at Eret, who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't said much, but he quirked an eyebrow as their eyes met.

"I hesitated," Jack admitted, looking down at the off-white tiles on the floor.

"You're the king of fast thinking," Merida said. "That's the whole reason you're on the team!"

She still didn't seem overly fond of the fact that he was on the team. The others had accepted him – Merida hadn't.

He shook his head.

The door of the hotel room opened, the Hiccup came in. He looked over the four of them, then his eyes landed on Jack.

As if the small space wasn't already crowded enough, he passed Merida and Eret and came into the bathroom.

"What happened?" he asked, wordlessly taking the bandage from Astrid that she had been about to wrap around Jack's shoulder.

Astrid handed it over without protest, and stepped back to stand by the door.

Jack sighed. With Merida, if he ran circles enough with his words, she might forget what her original question was, and drop the subject without realizing.

Hiccup was the direct one. And he was team leader, so Jack was actually required to answer his questions.

And he was too tired to play any games right now.

"I wouldn't kiss her," he said, looking back down at the tiles again.

There was an awkward silence between the five of them.

"Isn't that your job?" Merida finally asked.

Jack lifted his gaze to glare at her, but knew the expression was compromised by the fact he cringed as Hiccup tightened the bandage.

"No," he said. The pain added an edge to his voice. That was good. "My job was to get the information. Which I did. I just didn't get out fast enough."

"And you blew you cover?" Merida asked. "Over that?"

Jack rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous.

"Why didn't you just kiss her?" Merida asked.

Became I promised my wife I wouldn't, he thought. The words would probably shut Merida up.

But that was a secret he didn't feel like mentioning.

"I didn't want to," he said. And that was true. He hadn't wanted to kiss her. He hadn't wanted anything to do with the woman. She was the mistress of the leader of the drug cartel they were trying to track down. Flirting with her, and feeling her hands on his arm and shoulders, feeling her breath on his ear every time she leaned over to whisper something to him, had been hard enough.

He hadn't wanted anything to do with her – except that his assignment was to get the information from her.

His promise to Rapunzel just gave him a very valid reason not to.

But if he was going to keep that promise, he was going to have to get better at avoiding these situations. At finding a way to get out of these situations so his cover wouldn't be blown.

"So?" Merida asked. "I don't want to walk around that casino servin' drinks while these guys 'accidentally' bump into me. This is our job, Frost."

"Nowhere in my contract does it say that I have to kiss anyone," Jack said. "I just didn't think fast enough. It won't happen again."

"Done," Hiccup said, setting back once he had clipped the bandage into place. "You'll need to see a medic when we get back to the base, but you should be okay for now."

"Thanks," Jack said, standing up.

They all shifted back into the main part of the hotel room, which thankfully provided enough space that they all had some breathing room. More than there had been in the bathroom, at least.

Jack went over to his small suitcase, pushing through the contents with his good hand until he found a black button up shirt. Normally he would go for a tshirt – the button ups were strictly for when he had to go somewhere formal. But right now he wasn't up for lifting his arms above his head to get into a tshirt. His shoulder put that off limits.

"You've probably never been kissed," Merida said suddenly.

Jack stopped with the shirt in his grasp, turning to look at Merida.

"What?"

"That's why you didn't want to kiss her." And he couldn't tell if she was being serious, or if she was making fun of him.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Jack said, going back to pulling the shirt from the suitcase. He braced himself as he slid his injured arm into the cool, silky fabric of the sleeve.

"You're probably trying to save your first kiss for something special."

This was so ridiculous.

He was married, for heaven's sake. To use middle school language, he was pretty sure he had more "experience" than anyone else in the room.

He looked down at his left hand – specifically at his ring finger. There was no ring. No sign that there ever had been one. Because there never had been one. The silver chain he wore around his left wrist was the closest thing he had to a wedding band.

Rapunzel had chosen it (he hadn't even realized there were so many different kinds of chains before they had gone into the jewelry store to pick something out). They had originally been looking for a necklace, but the bracelet was less conspicuous. Easy to miss, and less distinctive than a pendant would be.

"Wedding rings aren't really tradition," she had said. "And even a couple hundred years ago, even if a woman wore a ring it wasn't usually on the ring finger."

It didn't change that he would rather be wearing a ring.

But keeping his marriage secret had been his idea, and Rapunzel had agreed.

It was better this way – safer.

At moments like this, though, he hated it.

"So what if I was?" Jack asked. "Just because the world's cheapened a kiss to a handshake doesn't mean it's right."

Merida's face actually turned red as she glared at him. "I'm not sayin' it's right," she snapped. "But this is your job! Ya can't—"

"Merida." It was Eret. He didn't even raise his voice – there wasn't even a warning in his tone.

But she still fell silent. She continued to glare at Jack for a moment, then shook her head.

"I have to go call North," Hiccup said into the silence. "Astrid, you and Merida should get ready to go. The jet will be here in an hour, and it's twenty minutes to the landing strip."

He left the room, Astrid and Merida following a few steps behind. But not without the red head shooting Jack a final glare over her shoulder.

The door closed behind them.

The room was silent for a moment, save for Jack throwing his things into his suitcase.

"She asked you not to, huh?" Eret asked.

Jack glanced up at his teammate.

Calling Eret his friend would be a bit of a stretch – in part because Eret wouldn't compromise his position with Merida if it came to a fight between her and Jack. But there was a special truce between them – not so much a friendship as an understanding.

Mostly because Eret was the only one on the team who knew.

Six months earlier, Jack had been injured while they were on an assignment in Paris. At some point while he had been unconscious he had said Rapunzel's name – several times. When Eret had asked, Jack had been loopy on painkillers, and the whole thing had come out.

Jack sighed as he sat down the on the edge of the bed, rubbing his forehead. "She made me promise."

"She wouldn't make an exception?" Eret asked. "You must have known what would happen if you didn't kiss her."

"Rapunzel… she takes a promise seriously. When we first met, she told me that she never, ever breaks a promise. She expects the same of me. I'm not going to betray that."

"It's never affected your work before."

"Recent development," Jack sighed. "She asked me about a month ago. This is the first time since then, and I panicked. I've never kissed any of them – I've always tried to avoid it."

"But you were thinking about your promise, and not how to get out of it."

Jack nodded.

When she had asked for his promise, he had given it without hesitation. Like he said, he had always avoided kissing any of his targets, so he hadn't thought it would be a problem.

But tonight, his brain had gone blank when his target challenged him.

They were silent for a couple minutes, while Eret finished packing his own bag.

"She must be pretty special."

Jack's lips twitched in a tired grin. "She is."

"You better figure something out, though," Eret advised. "I have a feeling Mer isn't gonna let this drop."

"Of course not," Jack sighed, heaving himself off the bed. "She never does."

And he would have to explain to North why the simple cut-and-dry mission had gone so smoothly, right up until the point Jack's cover had been blown, and they had all been forced to pull out.

They had succeeded – but the whole thing would have gone a lot smoother is Jack's assignment hadn't pulled a gun on him.

But he had kept his promise.

They had all gotten out alive. And he had kept his promise.