When Isaac came home at around two in the afternoon, exhausted from a three-hour long bowling rivalry with Ed, he was expecting to lie down for a little while. In his mind, he was already flat on his covers, playing some random game on his phone with an anime he'd already watched and finished a million times playing in the background. He might've fallen asleep without the covers on and woken up, shivering but rested. He might've gotten up to grab some fruit, an apple usually, but it truly lived up to its name as the forbidden fruit- because, upon finding Max sitting on the stairs up to his front porch, there was no way the evening was gonna go as he'd planned.

Isaac's feet stopped before his mind registered the look on Max's face, possibly his body's way of telling him: "Proceed with caution." His heart and his stomach flipped so high and low that it felt like they switched places, and his shoulders hitched just below his ears until he exhaled and let all of the freezing air in his lungs fly through his teeth. He tried to remember; he'd been through this already. He'd scoured his emotions and he was ready to try and move on- nothing Max came all the way to his door to say was going to take his resolve and break it.

If Max hadn't seen him before, he certainly had once Isaac passed him to unlock the front door.

"Isaac-!"

His fingers brushed the metal of his keys and the plastic of the mini photo frame locked to the chain, but that was as far as he got before Max had grabbed him by the arms. Isaac started to struggle the moment their skin made contact, shrugging his arms up and down and twisting away in a vain attempt to slip out of Max's grasp. He barred his teeth and gave Max his best scowl, leaving his body tense to the touch. Max sneered back at him from under the shadow of his cap, eyes narrowed sharply and lips curled. "Isaac, would you give me a goddamn minute?"

"What, Max? What could you possibly want?"

Isaac stopped fighting, if only for a moment, to hear what Max had to say. He shouldn't have been, but he was hopeful. Some part of him, perhaps a piece of childhood innocence that still lingered somewhere in some suppressed part of his mind, expected Max to say he didn't mean what he said. It expected Max to tear up and tell him he was just so in love with him, and that the reason he'd been so distant and quiet about them before was because he was trying to find the best way to- oh, he didn't know- pop the question or something equally ridiculous. That twisted little traitorous part of him believed- just for a second- that he'd been wrong before, that Max was there to sweep him off his feet. Little fantasies that had come to feel so distant as of late came swarming back in waves. The Max in his mind wanted him back, wanted to take his arms and laugh for hours like they used to; the Max he knew didn't exist had stepped up his front porch stairs and bent down on a subservient knee, spouting sappy, sugary, disgusting words because- at the end of the day- Isaac knew that's all it would take to win him over.

Isaac squashed it right when it started. Whatever light was lingering in his chest, it was gone because he snuffed it himself. He wasn't a kid anymore, and he and Max were in a very adult situation. Dropping his perception for the sake of optimism he knew, without a doubt, would be taken and ripped apart right in front of him- it wasn't something he would let himself do again.

Max looked at him for a moment, saying nothing even though his lips were parted. Then, with a sigh, he shook his head at his feet and met Isaac's fuming gaze with a resolute one. "Before you say anything, I know. I know I haven't explained myself. I'm here to change that." Isaac clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and his teeth, turning his head to look away. Max pulled him closer, squeezing the shoulder closest to Isaac's turned chin and tugging on it. "Look, I can't stand snubbing my best friend like this, alright?"

Isaac blinked, furrowed his brows, and then blinked again. His stomach did flips, but not like they usually did around Max. No, the flips he was feeling were more familiar, not that of romantic love- but of the adoration he felt for Max before romance was even a question on the board. It was what he felt the first time Max said "I need you", the first time Max held him by the shoulders and told him "I'll trust you enough for the both of us". He gave no direction to his body, but he relaxed in Max's hands.

"Best friend?"

"Aren't we?"

Isaac smiled at him then, and, though he hid it well, Max smiled right back. He took a deep breath and let his hands slide from Isaac's shoulders to the crease of his arm, where he squeezed the muscle and ran a tender thumb along the line before the forearm. "I need to be perfectly honest with you here, so do me a favor and just listen." Isaac nodded, but something squeezed in his chest tight enough to choke him. It was anticipation, the excitement of hearing what Max had to say. Curiosity. Max's eyes stayed glued to his, and Isaac would have been blind to not see the ardor burning there. "I haven't stopped thinking about you. Believe me, I've tried and I just can't. Everything in my room reminds me of you now! I can't even go to sleep- my freaking pillow smells like you!" Isaac hoped his cheeks weren't as pink as they felt hot. He would have expected some sort of fear from Max, some sign of apprehension or gawkiness, but all he saw was purpose and assurance. There was a confidence in Max he hadn't seen before, or maybe it was something that hadn't been there? Either way, Max squeezed him tight and continued on. "You are the one person I can't afford to lose, so do us both a favor and don't make that happen."

Hearing that must have made his world complete, because Isaac felt a whirlwind of emotion and energy just pumping into each beat of his veins, riding through him as fast as lightning in his hand. For a moment, Isaac felt electricity he hadn't conjured spark up and down his body, hair standing where Max's hands ran along his skin.

He shivered to think what a kiss could do at that instant in time.

"Max" Isaac swallowed hard and turned his eyes to his feet. "As happy as I am to hear that-!"

Max tensed. "That sounds like a negative..."

Isaac exhaled through his teeth and shut his eyes. "Max, we can't do this. If you're going to have regrets every time we get close," he shrugged, gesturing vaguely to the past behind them "like we did, then it's better we stay friends."

Max dropped one of Isaac's arms, raising his hand defensively. "Wait, Isaac listen-!"

At perhaps the most inopportune moment, the worst case of it Isaac personally had fallen victim of, his cell phone started ringing. Loud, proud, anime opening music instrumentals pounded against the speakers in Isaac's back pocket, and he didn't groan but he could feel it in his chest. He looked at Max, who turned his eyes from Isaac's ringing pocket to his face. He looked worn-out, irritated and stressed even, but there wasn't a lot to be done. "I should get that."

Reluctantly, Max let his hand slide down the length of Isaac's arm, fingers brushing generously against the backs of Isaac's own. Isaac shivered again and picked his phone out of his pocket.

Isabel's name and number flashed on the screen, a small picture of her in a Santa Clause costume (full beard, belly, etc…) twitching back and forth on his screen. He frowned and pinched the back of Max's hand. It grabbed his wide-eyed attention, like Isaac was expecting it to, and he gave Max a small reassuring smile. "We'll finish this later." As Isaac pulled the phone to his ear, Max raised an eyebrow and turned his endearing pout to the street behind them.

"What's up?"

"I need you two to get down to the dojo- and hurry."

"Wait, so…" Max formed a small black heart with his aura, tracing over its curves and lines with his finger. "Mister Spender, who's married and awkward and a ball of nervous energy ninety-nine percent of the time, was making heart eyes at Miss Guillory- a woman we've known all of three months and never heard him mention before, but he apparently knows her?"

By the time Max and Isaac had knocked on the heavy doors of the dojo, the training room was packed with their closest confidants, ranging from a very perturbed-looking Doctor Zarei to a complete and total stranger in a suitsie onesie, who somehow looked even more agitated than Zarei- and that was special. Cindy and Zarei stood side-by-side, leaning against the wall near the open infirmary door. Cindy seemed patient, but a closer look told Max that it was simply because she hadn't slept for days. He wondered why, but he wouldn't ask. Ed sat cross-legged atop one of the dummies, smiling and making nonsensical jokes about the odd (bright-as-hell orange) color of the stranger's hair. The stranger, irritated as anyone would have been, was snapping back at him with insults that burned like a quick touch to a hot stove. Isabel leaned against the wall near the staircase, fists in the pockets of her jeans, looking ready to kill. She'd greeted them with a nod, and then she'd been off on a tangent of an explanation that Max still wasn't sure he caught the entirety of. A glance at Isaac, who was shaking his head and blinking rapidly, assured him that he wasn't the only one a little lost. "Mister Spender- our teacher, mentor, close friend back from the dead- was flirting- legitimately flirting- with a woman we hardly know."

Isabel nodded, crossing her arms over her chest as though waiting for him to put the mucky puzzle pieces together in seconds. "Exactly."

"But that doesn't-!" Max looked at Isaac, who was standing behind him with a hand running through his hair, eyes wide and nose scrunched. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"But if it did?" Isabel waved her hand in a small circle, motioning for either one of them to continue. "What would make that situation make sense?"

Max squinted, scratched his head, and then raised a weary eyebrow. He racked his brain for possible scenarios, each as unlikely and far-fetched as his weirdest dreams. When he'd cleared out the inane, impossible, and utterly ridiculous, there was only one theory left that he could settle on. "Guillory is her maiden name- she's Spender's wife?"

Isabel smirked and tapped her nose at the side. "I thought that, too- but she's not."

"Wait, what?"

Ed leaped down from his place on the dummy, whipping out his paintbrush before drawing a large empty black box in the air. "Let's go over the clues, shall we?" Max looked back at Isaac again, who winced and shrugged, feeling equally as clueless. Ed painted a small head, and then drew some spiky hair atop it- a caricature of Isaac, Max soon figured out. "First things first; Berenice didn't know about Isaac's-!" They all paused and glanced at him, and he scowled and waved them off. "She didn't know about Isaac's situation, right? Well, if she was an agent of our parent organization- she wouldn't have been talking so openly about classified information."

"Then," Isabel pulled away from the wall, nodding to Ed when he twirled his brush between his fingers. He grinned from ear-to-ear and drew a large circle over what appeared to be a small cluster of buildings. "She knew about the breeches."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Max pointed at Zarei and Cindy, who stood patiently by the doorway of the open infirmary door. They both went wide-eyed and blinked. "They knew about the breech- and so did we!"

"Except," Ed drew another head, scribbling an unfamiliar scowling face in its blank circle. "Zarei and Cindy only knew because we told Old Man Guerra, and he told Zarei. Cindy knowing is my deal." He waggled his brush to the stranger standing rigidly straight. "That dude's an agent who just showed up in town to check on Spender, and apparently they had no idea he was considered 'dead' for the three months he wasn't checking in." The agent nodded and stepped forward, offering a hand that wasn't firm to shake when Max took it.

"My name is Agent Aldo Bove. I'm one of Richard's newer coworkers. I just recently came into his level of clearance." He pointed to the black box behind him with nothing but his thumb and a shrug of his stiff shoulder. "Aside from not knowing of Spender's death, as temporary as it may have been, we had no intel of a breech in the barrier of any sort. The agent who called you that night was no agent of ours, and I'm going to assume we can say the same for the agent who called your teacher."

Max blinked, then blinked again. "Wait, so if our parent organization didn't know about Spender being dead…"

"They couldn't send a replacement." Isaac came to stand beside Max, looking just as disturbed as Max was feeling. "Berenice isn't Spender's wife…"

Isabel frowned up at the newest picture Ed had drawn inside the black box- a woman with long braided hair and devil horns. "… She's Conall's third ally- and I think Mister Spender is under her control."