A/N: This chapter turned out to be way longer than I had expected; I thought about splitting it into two, but decided against it. You're welcome =)
"Astronomics has narrowed down the activity to the vicinity of Hotel Tateshina," Ootsuka's voice crackled over the radio. "Still no exact location."
"Understood." Misaki threaded her Porsche easily through the nighttime traffic; she was only two minutes from the hotel. It was a smallish building, situated in a narrow street lined with five- to ten-storey office buildings, hotels, and stores. Not an easy area to cover. "Saitou, you and Kouno monitor the Yasukuni Dori exit; Matsumoto, you stay on the other end of the street. I'll watch the front entrance of the hotel."
"Roger," Saitou and Matsumoto said in unison.
Misaki pulled her car up across from the hotel and shut off the engine. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel distractedly.
For the past three nights, she'd taken to turning on the earpiece that Hei had given her - and forgotten to take back - and listening for communications between him and his team. She wasn't really sure why she was doing it; it wasn't like she was going to use the information to ambush and arrest them, even if that was exactly what she ought to do. Maybe she just wanted to hear his voice. Until tonight, all she'd heard was a conversation - or argument, rather - between Huang and Mao about the brand of canned salmon that Huang was buying for the cat contractor. There had been nothing from either Yin or Hei.
Tonight, though, she'd still been at the office when the call had come in - contractor activity in Shinjuku, not too far from headquarters. DU-973. She and her team had jumped to it, and as soon as she was alone in her car, she'd turned on the radio (making sure that the mic was disconnected) just in case Hei was involved. And sure enough, through the tiny earpiece she'd heard Yin informing him that his target was heading up to the third floor of a hotel, disguised as staff. Misaki didn't know for sure which hotel he was in; but now she'd bet anything that it was Hotel Tateshina.
The hotel and both radios were quiet for several long minutes. Then Yin's voice broke the silence.
"He saw me. He's running; he has the item."
There was no response from Hei.
She heard Mao's voice next. "Police, across the street. That nosy lady cop again. Better take care of him inside." Damn it. It was too easy for a black cat to hide in the night-cloaked streets of the city.
"New star activity!" Ootsuka's voice broke in, garbled and grainy compared to the expensive radio in Misaki's ear. "BK-201. We have a location: the roof of Hotel Tateshina. Be advised, he appears to be in conflict with DU-973."
Shit. Misaki jumped out of her car and ran across the street, heedless of any oncoming traffic. Saitou and Kouno would also be moving on the contractors; but she was closer, and sure to get there first.
She pushed through the hotel doors and scanned the modest lobby for the stairwell. Locating it, she sped towards the stairs, drawing her gun as she opened the door. The stairwell was clear. Misaki headed up, wondering what she would find when she reached the top - and what she would do about it.
Five floors later her legs were burning, but she reached the door to the roof; it had been broken open, and now hung slightly ajar. She couldn't see anything through the gap. Breath ragged from the climb, Misaki paused briefly to try and settle her heart rate, then pushed the door open as silently as she could and stepped out onto the roof, gun raised.
The first thing that she saw was the dark shape of a body on the floor. She felt a fleeting moment of panic at the thought that it was Hei; then she saw another dark figure moving towards the roof's edge, and recognized him instantly.
"Freeze! Police!" It wasn't what she wanted to say, but it came out automatically.
He looked back, white mask gleaming in the orange lights of the surrounding city. Then he turned away, and stepped up onto the parapet.
"Wait! Hei!" But it was too late. He jumped over the edge without a backward glance. Misaki ran up to the parapet and looked over; not a sign of him.
The door banged open behind her. "Chief! Are you alright?"
"Fine," she told Saitou in a falsely brisk voice, hoping that it hid her disappointment. She turned away from the edge and holstered her gun. "DU-973. Is he dead?"
Kouno crouched down next to the body and checked the man's pulse. "As a doornail," he said. "No marks that I can see."
"Where's BK-201?" Saitou asked.
Misaki just shook her head. She could hear Huang on the radio, directing Hei and Mao to a rendezvous. She couldn't follow; there was a crime scene to secure, and paperwork waiting for her at the office.
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Misaki finally arrived at the door to her apartment, feet dragging. Her five-flight stair run at the end of an already long day had nearly wiped her out. And she was dreading what she was going to have to tell the director tomorrow. He'd been none too pleased by her actions on Saturday despite the take-down of an MSS spy ring, and her team was a little put out that she'd run up to the hotel roof alone without even radioing her intent first - though they'd left that out of their reports. BK-201, escaped on her watch for the second time in a week. She was looking forward to a glass of wine and a hot bath before bed.
She unlocked her apartment door and flicked on the lights, kicking off her shoes. Her purse and suit jacket followed, dumped unceremoniously onto the entryway table. Misaki was halfway into the kitchen before she realized that she wasn't alone in the apartment. Hei was sitting on the living room sofa, hunched over his knees and watching her under heavy-lidded eyes. He was all in black, weapons harness still strapped on, his trench coat draped over the seat next to him. He looked as tired as she felt.
She recovered from her initial start quickly, despite the pounding of her heart. "What are you doing here?" she asked warily.
She wanted him to answer by slowly walking up to her, taking her in his arms, and kissing her until they were both breathless and dizzy. But he didn't move.
"You still have my radio."
"Oh. Right." Misaki wondered if he knew that she'd been listening in tonight. She removed it from her pocket; at least she hadn't still been wearing it in her ear. She walked over to the sofa and dropped the radio into his outstretched hand, then took a step back. His body language wasn't exactly inviting.
Hei tucked the device into a pocket in his coat, but still didn't get up. Misaki wished that he would; it was awkward, her standing in front of him like that. She felt like she was under interrogation. But sitting down beside him would be just as awkward. She didn't trust herself to be close to him, and without a clear signal from him, wouldn't risk it.
"You used my name," he said, narrowing his eyes a little.
She had, hadn't she. "It was a mistake. An accident. There was no one else there to hear, but I'll be more careful next time."
"No next times," Hei said in that cold, flat voice that meant that he was trying to bury his emotions but gave no hint as to what those emotions were. "You need to stay away from me, do you understand? You're going to get hurt." The words held the form of a threat, but she thought she heard a plea beneath them. He didn't want her getting hurt because of him.
She could have protested that of course there would be more instances of her running into him on a mission, for as long as he was in the city; but she was sure that he knew that. Just as he knew that it was dangerous for him to be in her apartment. But he was there anyway. He probably didn't realize how cruel of him that was; cruelty was not a trait he possessed.
"Just be more careful," he said curtly. Then, a little softer, "What did you want?"
She frowned. "What?"
He gazed at her with those deep, deep dark eyes. "When you asked me to wait."
"Oh. I…I don't know," she confessed. "Nothing." Why had she called out to him? On a rooftop in the middle of the city, with his team waiting and hers right on her heels?
Hei averted his eyes and stood to go, turning towards his coat. Misaki took another step back, to be sure not to crowd him. As he reached down, she saw a runnel of red form along the back of his other hand; a crimson drop fell from his fingertip.
"Hei, you're hurt!"
He looked at his hand, uninterested. "It's nothing." Then his gaze traveled further down; she saw his eyes widen at the sight of the fresh blood stain on her cream colored carpet. "Ah," he said as his face took on an endearingly abashed look. "I can clean that…"
A laugh escaped Misaki's mouth. "Go into the bathroom," she said behind her hand, trying to keep from laughing again. "I can at least bandage that for you, so you don't bleed all the way home."
She pointed the way to the bathroom; Hei hesitated at first.
"Go," she said again, more sternly, and he went, giving her an unreadable look as he did so. He held his arm against his stomach in an effort to not damage her carpet any further. Before joining him, Misaki went into the kitchen and soaked a towel with cold water to lay over the stain before the blood could seep into the fibers. It was a tiny spot, but she'd only just replaced the carpet a year ago.
She blotted the stain, then left the towel to sit over it, and stared at the light spilling into the short hallway in front of the bathroom door. Deciding.
Hei was standing at the sink when Misaki entered the bathroom, unwinding a strip of black cloth from just above his elbow. Black on black, she hadn't noticed the makeshift bandage earlier. He dropped it into the sink; the cloth was soaked through and left a smear of blood on the porcelain. There was more blood dripping from his hand, but the tile floor of the bathroom would be easy to clean.
"Take your shirt off," she ordered, eyeing the wide tear in his sleeve. The fabric was too tight to be rolled all the way above his elbow.
He made no response except for a gratifying, slight blush, and began to unbuckle his weapons harness.
Her bathroom was small and utilitarian; she'd traded counter space for a wide soaker tub, and never yet regretted it. But it meant that there was hardly enough room for two people to stand at the sink. She pressed in beside him so that she could get at the medicine cabinet, forcing him to move further into the room to keep from brushing against her. His usual intensity was gone; she tried to keep from smiling at the thought that just being close to her was making him nervous. It was certainly how he made her feel.
Misaki set about collecting the supplies that she'd need to dress his wound; she wasn't anywhere near as well as equipped as his safe house in Roppongi had been, but what she did have should be enough.
As she rummaged in the cabinet above the sink, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he set his knives in the bathtub for lack of a better place. He pulled his shirt up over his head, and the sight of his bare torso made her heart skip a beat. The bottom of his shirt was ragged where he had cut the cloth for the bandage. His arm was red from the elbow down, but she thought that most of it was blood that had soaked into his sleeve, then rubbed off on his skin. He dropped the shirt into the tub with the knives.
"Sit down," she said, gesturing to the edge of the bathtub. When he'd sat, she seated herself on the toilet, which was next to the tub. So close, that their knees were touching.
"Here." Gently taking his elbow, she placed his arm on her lap where she could easily see the gash, on the side of his triceps. It wasn't wide, but it was deep, and the blood leaked from it slowly but steadily.
"Your clothes," he said. If resting his arm across her thighs made him uncomfortable, he didn't show it.
"You're hardly the first person who's bled on me," Misaki said. "I know a good dry cleaner." But she reached behind her and snagged a hand towel which she tucked under his arm. She hated having to make an extra trip to the cleaners.
She wet a few large squares of gauze in rubbing alcohol and started cleaning the area around his wound, keeping one hand on his forearm to steady it. His muscles were tight beneath her hand; maybe he wasn't as relaxed as he appeared after all.
"How did this happen with your coat on?" she asked as she worked.
"The coat is impervious to bullets, not knives."
That's right - they'd found a knife near the contractor's body, a short, nasty weapon that could easily be concealed in the palm of the hand. She'd assumed it was one of Hei's; he certainly carried enough.
"Hm." She finished with the surrounding area, and began cleaning the cut itself. Hei grimaced a little when the alcohol came into contact with his exposed flesh, but he didn't flinch away. The alcohol helped to staunch the trickle of blood. "This is pretty deep. You might need a stitch or two."
Hei was looking at the cut as well. "Just bandage it tightly; the muscle will knit itself easily enough."
She supposed he would know better than she; most of the scars that she could see on his lean upper body were faint and smooth, signs that the wounds had been well cared for. A long, thin scar ran along the outer bone of his forearm. She traced it absently with her fingertip, wondering how he'd gotten it. Would he tell her if she asked?
Misaki realized what she was doing, and looked up abruptly to find Hei gazing at her, the desire in his dark eyes almost palpable. Her breath caught. She held his gaze for a moment, then turned to pick up the tube of antibiotic with an unsteady hand.
"Why aren't you trying to arrest me?" he asked her quietly as she spread the ointment over his cut.
"I should be, I know." Him showing up at her apartment, dressed as the Black Reaper and bleeding after she'd seen him run from a murder scene was hardly protected under the terms of the their agreement, she was sure. "But you wouldn't have come here if you'd thought that I would."
He didn't answer. She used a couple of butterfly bandages to pull the cut closed, then started winding a wide roll of gauze tightly around his arm to keep them in place, and continued speaking.
"While you're certainly one of the most dangerous contractors that we've had in the city, I can appreciate that you don't kill indiscriminately or endanger civilians. What I really want is to know who's backing you and what their goals are, but either you'll tell me voluntarily, or you won't tell me at all. Arresting you would be pointless."
She could picture him in their interrogation room, handcuffed to the table, stoic and silent for days on end no matter what threats or bargains were offered him. He had his own reasons for not betraying his organization, and the prospect of imprisonment wouldn't make a difference. That is, if they managed to arrest him in the first place, which she highly doubted.
"You sound like a contractor," he said.
"Well, that makes one of us." Misaki pulled on the gauze to make sure the bandage was tight enough, then tore it from the roll and taped the end down. "What did Morado say to you? That if he hadn't seen you use your power, he wouldn't have believed that you were a contractor? Well, I feel the same way. The more time I spend with you, the more I realize that you're not the horrible person you seem to think you are."
She expected him to protest that statement, even to get angry and argue; but he just stared pensively at his feet, brow slightly furrowed.
Misaki examined her bandaging job. There wasn't a trace of red on the gauze. "That should do it," she said.
When Hei took his arm back, fingering the bandage absently, Misaki stood and moved to put her supplies away, her heart rate increasing by the second. She replaced the rubbing alcohol and roll of gauze in the medicine cabinet and glanced over at Hei. He was still sitting hunched over on the edge of the tub, lost in thought. His tension and weariness were clear in the taut muscles of his back. She let her gaze travel languidly from his well-defined collar bones and down his flat stomach. She sucked in her breath and turned away, shutting the door of the cabinet.
"Well," she said, hoping that her voice didn't betray her nerves, "it's late, and I could really use a long hot bath; you look like you could use one too. You're welcome to join me, or you can leave. It's up to you."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him look up sharply. She couldn't read his face; his expression could have been surprise, confusion, or something else entirely. She turned a little more so that she couldn't see him at all; he made her too nervous, and if he was going to reject her, she didn't want to see it. But to make sure that her meaning was clear, she untucked her blouse and began unbuttoning it.
He still hadn't moved by the time she got to the last button; and as she dropped her shirt to the floor - bloodstains be damned - she was convinced that she'd been reading things wrong after all. She realized with a blush that she was standing between him and the door; of course he hadn't moved. But there was no way for her to make more room, and she'd look like a fool if she stopped now. He'd have to find his own way around her.
Misaki reached for the button on her pants, and almost gasped aloud when Hei's hands were suddenly there first. She hadn't heard him move, but now the length of his hard body was pressed up against her, his warm breath in her ear. She closed her eyes and let her hands rest on his as he undid the button himself. He pulled down the zipper, then slowly tugged her pants down to puddle on the floor, caressing her hips and thighs as he did so.
His arms still encircling her, he rested one hand on her stomach, and with the other he removed her glasses, setting them on the counter. He brushed her long tail of hair over the front of her shoulder. His fingers caught her bra strap in the process; the strap fell from her shoulder. She pulled her arm out of it, with his help, and removed the other strap herself. Hei undid the clasp, and her bra fell to join her pants and shirt.
Her hair out of the way, he kissed the side of her neck, working his way slowly up to her ear. Misaki turned her head and met his lips, overlaying her hands on his once again. He kissed her long, and slow, and deep. She could feel his physical desire for her and deliberately pressed her hips back, shivering at the guttural sound she drew from him.
"Slow down," he said, breathing heavily and nipping at her ear. "We have all night."
His words did nothing to encourage her to slow down, but rather stoked her building passion. She twisted in his arms and kissed him again, hard. One of his hands drifted down to her rear, while the other pulled her tightly against his chest. He was moving slowly, deliberately, and it was agonizingly sweet torture.
She took his belt in her hands, but to her increasing frustration she couldn't figure out how to undo the complicated fastenings. Hei eventually did it himself; as soon as he had it loose, she pulled it off and dropped it to the floor.
Misaki gripped his waistband, intending that his pants follow the belt, but he took one of her hands and moved it to his thigh. She felt the hilt of a knife beneath her fingers, and remembered the weapon that he wore on his leg, the one he had used to cut her bonds in the basement of the bar. This buckle was easier, and she soon had it off. If it made a sound when it hit the floor, she didn't hear it over the pounding of her heart. She thought that she could feel his heart, beating against her breast. Both their breathing was coming short and shallow.
Just as he had, she let her hands caress his firm rear and thighs as she pushed his pants off of his hips. Before she could add his tight black shorts to the pile of clothing on the floor though, he stopped her. He cupped her face, leaning his forehead against hers, and she saw the question in his eyes, the fear. And the need. The pure depth of human emotion in his expression was breathtaking.
"The bedroom's across the hall," she answered before he could say anything, and kissed him again, bath forgotten.
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Misaki opened her eyes slowly. It was later; how much later she wasn't sure. She might have been asleep for hours, or she might have only been dozing in the afterglow. It was still nighttime, in any case; the only light in the room was that which was bleeding across the hall from the bathroom.
Hei was beside her still, lying on his stomach with his arm draped across her and their legs entangled. The warm weight of him on her body was comforting. Her hand rested on his back, and she felt no trace of his usual tension beneath her fingers. She closed her eyes again, too content and sleepy to move, not even to shift the arm that was going numb beneath his head.
She might have fallen asleep again. Vaguely, she became aware that Hei was awake. He disentangled himself from her carefully, gently, and she felt the mattress shift as he moved. She opened her eyes halfway to see the outline of his form sitting up on the edge of the bed.
He was going to leave. She was suddenly wide awake.
"Hei, wait," she said softly, sitting up herself. The sheets were warm where he had been lying.
"I need to go," he said, sounding empty.
"When will I see you again?"
In the dim light she saw his back stiffen, and heard him breathe in, in preparation to speak. She knew what the words would be.
"Don't say this was a mistake!" she said angrily. "Don't say we can't ever see each other again!" She was angry with him for not trying harder, and angry with herself for the tears that were so close to falling.
He exhaled slowly, but didn't say anything, which confirmed that her guess had been right. She moved closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his neck to breathe in the smell of him.
"I know we had a deal, but I can't keep it anymore. I can't forget you, and if you leave, you'll find me on your doorstep tomorrow. You'll have to erase my memory after all."
He was silent for an unusually long time; she might have fallen asleep there, resting against his back and listening to his steady, measured breaths going in and out, if not for the sharp ache of pain at the thought of losing him.
"What if we made a new agreement?" he said at last.
"What?" Misaki asked. She realized that her cheeks were wet, but made no move to dry them.
"Do you have something brightly colored? Like a scarf, or a hat?"
"I have a pink headscarf," she said, confused by the question. Her great-aunt had given it to her years ago, but Misaki hated pink and she hated anything covering her ears. She'd only kept the scarf because her aunt was still alive and Misaki lived in fear of offending her more traditional older relative. Anymore than she already did, anyway.
"If you want to see me again some night, hang the scarf in your bedroom window," Hei said; Misaki thought she could hear the blush in his voice, and smiled. "If I'm in the area, and I'm not busy, maybe I'll come up."
Her smile grew wider. "Deal," she said, and turned his face so that she could take his lips in hers. And as he laid her back onto the bed, kissing her sweetly and hungrily, she knew that he was lying about the 'maybe'.
fin