Drip.

Drip.

It is the sound of steadily dripping water that Loke Leo wakes up to. He remains completely still, his eyes shut and his breathing unchanged, not giving any indication that he's regained consciousness. Instead, he extends his senses.

The air is cool and has a stale and musty scent, leading him to conclude that he's in a building that hasn't been occupied for a while. An abandoned building of some kind converted into a safehouse, most likely; a government facility would feel crisper from more frequent use and cleaning. He is sitting on a metal chair, his hands bound behind him. Additional rope is tied around his legs, securing him firmly to the chair.

His head is throbbing in pain, there is a dull ache in his ribs, and his entire battered body is sore beyond belief. He feels as if he got into a fight with a train and lost. Badly.

"Are you awake?"

Speaking of the metaphorical train…

Lucy Leo .

Initially, when Loke was on the receiving end of her onslaught back in Desmond's office, he assumed that it was a mere coincidence: that she had no idea he was Loke, and that he was just incredibly unlucky to have the Princess sent after him.

However, upon further sustained reflection…

In his line of work, there is no such thing as a coincidence. Sure, random chance does exist and is the bane of all in his profession, but the odds of Lucy just happening to be the Princess are so infinitesimally small that it might as well be zero.

In all likelihood, he had fallen straight into a classic counterintelligence operation the moment he stepped foot into the city. Lucy – if that's even her real name — had probably approached him in the tailor shop as part of some larger operation. Her "brother", Yuri, was used as a smokescreen for Lucy's own operation to lure Loke into a false sense of security. Perhaps the Secret Police were the ones pulling the strings here? Or some foreign spy agency, such as Zoa or the BGK? Or perhaps even the Garden?

Whatever the case, she played him like a fiddle. He fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Loke surmised that she was spying on him the entire time, secretly keeping tabs on his every move in order to glean information on WISE's plans and operations. And, now that peace is about to be achieved and WISE will no longer conduct as many operations in Ostania, she no longer needs him to keep track of WISE's movements. Thus, she made her move to lay out a trap, capture him, interrogate him for all his information, then ultimately silence him.

The spy part of him is impressed.

The part of him that is Loke Leo , however…

"I know you're awake."

Well, there's no point in feigning sleep. Somebody with her mastery of martial arts would undoubtedly be capable of reading his body like an open book. To her, the nearly imperceptible twitches of his muscles that signified awakeness would be as clear as day.

Not missing a beat, Loke opens his eyes to see Lucy's crimson eyes piercing into him.

" Princess," he greets quietly.

"Loke," she says, twirling one of her golden weapons in her hand. A clear threat. "Or should I say Loke?"

Loke doesn't respond immediately. Instead, he casts a quick glance around the room, eyes flitting around as he scans his surroundings. He was right; it appears they're an abandoned building somewhere. The walls are unfinished and dilapidated, and the grey concrete floor is covered with dust and debris. There are no windows, and the only source of light in the room is a flickering lightbulb overhead that casts a dim glow over the room.

Almost unconsciously, his mind whirls into action. It takes him approximately three seconds to devise a plan to escape, another five seconds to devise a second plan, and an additional eight seconds to devise a third. However, he doesn't implement any of them yet. He still needs to figure out just how much they know and who's holding him captive.

"Well?" Lucy presses, an indecipherable expression on her face as she stares down at him. "Who are you? Are you really Loke Leo ?"

It's a strange question to ask, but he supposes that she probably doesn't know everything. He briefly considers saying yes, that Loke Leo is his true identity, but…

He casts a glance to the walls. While the walls to his front, left, and back are crumbling, the wall to his right is fairly intact — suspiciously so. It looks like a normal wall, but chances are, it's a one-way mirror with a whole cadre of analysts examining him, seeing what makes him tick and taking note of any potential weaknesses. If that's the case, he can't risk placing Anya in harm. If they believe she's his true daughter, then they'll likely use her as leverage against him.

And… as much as he doesn't want to admit it, he can't risk placing Lucy in harm either. The Garden may attempt to use her against him if they find out the extent to which he cares for her.

He opens his mouth to respond — and nothing comes out.

Huh?

This isn't the first time he's been captured by enemy forces (granted, all the other times were when he was captured on purpose in order to take the enemy down from within). He excels in all matters of negotiation, persuasion, and obfuscation. It should be child's play for him to maneuver this conversation to be in his favor.

Which is why Loke's so startled when he finds that his mouth has dried up and his mind has gone completely blank.

He tries to pretend it's because his mind is still addled by the injuries he sustained, but he knows the truth.

Loke Leo is compromised. There's no way he can behave professionally and objectively when Lucy — the Princess is involved. Which is probably her plan, he supposes. Even if he intellectually knows she captured him, that she was lying to him all along, that she's the enemy, he's still unable to separate the merciless assassin in front of him from the Lucy he knows.

Damnit.

Well, if Loke Leo has been compromised…

He closes his eyes, forcibly suppressing every thought, memory, and emotion in his mind in an instant. He cannot afford to falter now, not when peace hangs in the balance. He has to push through, no matter how much hurt and betrayal he feels.

All for the sake of the mission –

What mission? Without Loke Leo , without Lucy Leo , does Operation Strix even exist anymore?

He silences that traitorous voice as well. A spy is the master of his mind, not the other way around.

And slowly, Loke opens his eyes.

"I am Loke," he answers, his voice cool and detached. "Loke Leo is merely a cover identity I adopted for the purposes of my mission."

Lucy nearly flinches at the sudden change in Loke's demeanor. All the warmth in his expression has vanished, and it's as though she's staring at a completely different person. His expression is utterly indifferent, and his normally kind blue eyes are now like chips of ice.

So it's true. Loke — Loke is a spy, and he lied to her. Unconsciously, she spins her golden weapon in her hand, a nervous habit she's had for as long as she remembered.

"What about Anya?" Lucy asks. "Is she really your daughter? Your previous wife — did she really die?"

"No," Loke says in the same emotionless tone. "I adopted Anya from the orphanage a week before I met you. Everything I told you about my previous wife was a lie. Anya was nothing but an asset I brought in in order to fulfill the objectives of my mission."

Lucy feels as if the wind was just knocked out of her. "Asset?" she says quietly. "Were we just assets to you?"

Loke gives a single nod. "Yes."

Genuine anger and hurt flash across Lucy's mind at that. "I see," she says, her voice becoming low. "And what exactly are the objectives of your mission-?"

She pauses as she recalls what the Shopkeeper told her. "Desmond," she breathes in realization. "You're after Desmond. That's why you were so insistent on Anya befriending Damian. It's so you could use her to get closer to Donovan Desmond."

Loke's eyes flicker. "Indeed. A mistake, in retrospect. I take it Desmond must be most pleased with you right now, what with providing him the prime opportunity to bring down the peace conference with an espionage scandal – involving the spy Loke himself, no less."

"What?" Lucy frowns. "No, it's nothing like that. Desmond isn't involved in this at all, other than… well, agreeing to be the bait in our trap."

"Our," Loke repeats. "Who do you work for?"

"That – that's none of your business."

Loke gazes at her, and suddenly Lucy feels as if he's seeing right through her.

"You are not a freelance . Desmond would never trust you enough to cooperate with you if you were an unaffiliated assassin. You're not the Secret Police either. The tactics you used don't fit with their modus operandi. Nor are you the BGK; I already infiltrated their ranks a while back and definitely would've heard of an operative as skilled as you. I doubt you are Zoa either — they generally place emphasis on using superior numbers and weaponry to overwhelm their foe."

Lucy blinks. The BGK? Zoa? She's never heard of them before…

"Which only leaves the Garden, a consortium of assassins so strong it's said each operative can individually take on a small army," Loke finishes, his eyes narrowing slightly. "I always thought they were a myth — but then again, the Princess was also supposed to be an urban legend, yet here you are."

He chucked humorlessly. "I confess, I didn't see this coming. Well done." He tilts his head. "At any rate, this is a waste of time. Why don't you call in the other Garden operatives and get this over with already?"

Lucy furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "Huh?"

"Please. Don't treat me like a fool. You were sent to interrogate me because your superiors think your presence would destabilize me, correct?" Loke smiles. "It's futile. You were just a tool I used in order to gain access to Eden. I'm afraid your superiors are deeply mistaken if they believe our 'relationship' meant anything to me."

Lucy's face goes deceptively blank. "Ah," she murmurs. "Is that so?"

"Of course. So, let's skip the interrogation, shall we?" Loke angles his head challengingly. "It'll just be a waste of our time. You can move ahead to the execution. Or torture, depending on what your superiors ordered you to — "

"They didn't order me to do anything!" Lucy snaps, finally losing her patience even as her heart clenched painfully at his words. "Yes, I worked for the Garden to take down Loke — but I didn't know it was you! Nobody knew who you were. We only found out where you would be through a leak in WISE!"

Loke blinks. "A leak — "

"And," Lucy continues, narrowing her eyes, "when your disguise tore off in Desmond's office and I realized it was you, Loke, I decided to abandon the mission and take you away to safety. I'm not following anyone's orders; I'm disobeying them."

Loke's eyes widen slightly. "You… what?"

"I've gone rogue. I betrayed the organization that I spent my entire life working for, just because I didn't want you getting tortured or killed."

There is a moment of silence.

Strangely, Loke then lets out several chuckles. "Right. A likely story. Pretending you betrayed your organization to gain trust of a captive – it's a tale as old as time. Just how naive do you think I am?"

"I'm telling the truth!"

"I'm sure you are," he says before craning his neck to the wall to their right. "Just as how I'm sure your superiors aren't watching behind that one-way mirror right now."

"One-way mirror? What one-way mirror?!" She strides over to the wall and in one powerful blow, she punches right through. Dust and debris crumble down to the ground as she extracts her fist, leaving behind a large hole that shows the empty neighboring room. She turns back to Loke, who is staring at the hole with wide eyes. "Does this seem like a one-way wall to you?"

"I…" Loke trails off. "Then there must be microphones embedded in the – "

"There's nothing!" Lucy hisses. "I brought you to a safehouse because – " she stops abruptly. "Nobody knows we're here," she finally says after some time. "The Garden is probably hunting me down as we speak."

It seems to have finally dawned on Loke that he may have made a miscalculation. His eyes are wide as he stares at her, shock, disbelief, and confusion written across his face.

Lucy shakes her head, suddenly feeling so very drained and disappointed. "I – I can't." She whirls around and makes to leave the room, pausing momentarily in the doorway. "Anya would be ashamed of you," she says quietly without looking back. "I know I certainly am."

Then she leaves the room without another word.

And, in her haste to leave, she misses how Loke's entire body slumps over in a picture of utter defeat.

!