Archive of Our Own ^beta

Patch frowns at her phone again as she stops at the light. It’s fine, she reminds herself. Diego didn’t need to respond to her text that she was running late after having to stay an extra hour at the precinct to sort through some evidence. It was a heads up, nothing that warranted a confirmation or anything.

It’s just he usually does. Makes some crack about how slow following due process is or something.

But it’s fine.

He was probably just busy.

With Lila.

Patch tightens her grip on the wheel and then forces herself to relax it.

The light turns green. She forces her thoughts to the traffic as she drives the couple blocks to the Umbrella Academy. She idles for a moment outside of the front door before deciding that’s a stupid way to wait for her boyfriend and pulls into the alley. Something in her gut eases as she parks behind Diego’s car. He’s here.

She walks around the building, to the front gate, up the stairs. Trying the door, she is unsurprised to find it unlocked. The Hargreeves are unexpectedly lax about their home security; the one time she’s brought it up, Klaus pointed out one little locked door has never stopped anyone from getting in and wrecking their shit anyway. Might as well save the lock. Or the glass. Or the door.

Her amusement is short-lived as she opens the door into someone. “Oof!” Patch takes an unexpected step back, her grip on the door catching her as she’s knocked off balance. The someone she ran into stumbles backwards, her choppy bleach-blonde hair falling over her face.

“Lila,” Patch says, smiling, although it feels tight on her face.

Lila straightens, pushing her hair out of her way and heaving the large duffle she carries higher on her shoulder. “Eudora.” She smiles back, wide and sharp, her accent pulling on the vowels of her name.

Lila.

Patch doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do about Lila.

Or the fact that she’s sharing her boyfriend with her.

Ugh, sharing sounds so juvenile, she hates thinking about it like that, even if that is basically what they’re doing. She’d never expected herself to be the sort of woman who’d be in an… open relationship. That she’s in an open relationship for Diego of all people is even wilder.

But, as they’ve all agreed, it’s complicated. Time travel does that to a situation.

“What are you doing?” Patch asks.

“Going out.” Lila moves to push through her and out the door. Patch keeps her arm out to block. Lila stops again.

“Where’s Diego?”

“What do you care?”

Patch gives her a flat look. She has to know Patch and Diego had dinner plans this evening. Lila swallows but blinks in faux innocence.

“Lila, I just want to grab Diego and get out of here, and then you can go off to do whatever it is you’re going to do. I don’t care.”

Lila hefts the bag again and doesn’t move out of Patch’s space. She is very close. She shifts again. “Well… I have to go get him.”

Patch sighs. “From where? I can pick him up.” She tries to tamp down on her budding annoyance. If Diego had just texted that he had had a change of plans, she could have avoided this whole odd interaction.

“You’re asking a lot of questions.” Lila tries to step around her again. Patch stands strong. Her irritation is starting to darken into the worry she had in the car.

“Why don’t you answer them?”

Lila pulls on a frazzled smile, obviously thinking on what she wants to say next. “Yeah, well…” Her expression brightens and she shifts her bag once again to free her hands. She clenches her fists to—

“Do I want to know what’s going on in here?” Five calls from the top of the stairs. Patch looks over Lila’s shoulder at him and puts the pieces together. She darts a hand out to grab Lila’s arm just as blue starts to flicker between them. The light dies and Lila shoots her dirty look.

Five frowns as he descends, pace relaxed. He’s dressed casually in one of his many tiny suits. He jerks his chin in a nod. “Detective.”

“Five.”

His expression pinches further as he reaches the foyer. “What’s with the guns?”

“Guns?” Patch demands. She gives Lila’s duffle bag a more appraising look. It is lumpy, with something long inside.

“Narc,” Lila mutters.

“Why do you need guns to go get Diego?” Patch tries again.

“Need guns to get—What did you two get into?” Five interrupts.

Lila huffs. “I’ve got it handled.” She still hasn’t backed up and is far too much in Patch’s space.

Patch takes a careful breath in and lets it out, forcing her spike of panic and irritation down. “Explain,” she says, no room for argument in her tone.

Lila shifts uncomfortably, trying to subtly escape the firm grip Patch still has on her arm to keep her from jumping away with Five’s powers. “It’s nothing!” she tries again. At both Patch’s and Five’s nonplussed expressions, she sags a little. “It’s just a little trouble.”

“I know what a ‘little trouble’ is for Diego,” Patch says.

“Who has him?” Five asks.

“A gang,” Lila admits. “We were trying to dig up some dirt on them, and they were… more prepared than we expected. We miscalculated how quickly we could get out with how many guys they had around. Diego made a distraction so I could get out of a pickle, and… I couldn’t return the favor. He’s okay, though!” she hurries to add at their expressions. How she shifts slightly, though, tells Patch all she needs to know on how confident Lila actually is about that statement.

“Where?” Patch asks.

“I followed them down to the waterfront. Big warehouse off the docks.”

Five considers this. “One with the smoke stacks?”

Lila shakes her head. “Windows.”

He takes another moment to place that information and then nods. “Let’s go, then.”

Patch understands what they duo is about to do just in time. “Nope,” she says as the pair makes to teleport away. “Car, with me, now. If we are doing this, we’re doing this together, and that means we need a plan.” She turns without waiting for a response to lead the way to the car, confident that her tone was enough to bring the ex-assassins in line behind her. After a hesitant couple seconds, two sets of footsteps behind her on the stairs confirms it. She allows herself a small smile.

At her car, she flicks the trunk open so she can pull her practical work boots out, kicking her heels off with a sigh to change back into them.

“Aren’t we in a hurry?” Lila asks as she and Five come to a stop in front of her.

“I am not rushing a gang hideout in heels.”

“You could. I’ve done missions in heels, it’s not bad. If you’re good. Why are you wearing those, anyway? They don’t really feel like your… vibe.”

“Good for you. I’d rather have good shoes on. And, if you remember from the beginning of all this, I was supposed to be on a date right now.” Patch focuses on tying up her laces, double knotting them. “Where do we need to go?”

“Warehouse district, on the waterfront,” Lila repeats. “We were trying to hit one of their smaller offices for the info, but they took him to their headquarters.”

Patch sighs and looks up. “So, instead of a small and controlled space, we have to get him out of a very large one with many more gang members?”

Lila shifts, defensive. “Hey, at least I know where he is.”

Patch glances to Five, who has been uncharacteristically quiet through all of this, and he just raises his eyebrows at her. With a glance behind her at the car, he asks, “Are we good to go now? Can we go get my brother?”

“Yes,” she says. She straightens and slams her trunk shut, refusing to look at her nice heels haphazardly laying inside and doing too good of a job symbolizing her ruined evening. Five holds out an expectant hand. It takes her a second to process what the silent gesture is for. “No,” she says once she does, “you are not driving.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t know where we’re going,” Lila says. She also holds out her hand.

“No, you’re not driving, either. I am driving my car while you two ride and tell me everything we need to know for what we’re getting into.” As they start to protest, she says, “No! This is an official police car, I don’t trust you driving it, and I cannot let someone who is legally thirteen drive it. Get in.”

She gets a sour look from Five for bringing up his physical and legal age, but he disappears with nothing more than a sideways glance to Lila, which is a relief. Lila blinks at his sudden and cooperative exit. Then she says, “Fuck! He took shotgun.”

Patch doesn’t want to get in between that power struggle and honestly doesn’t care, so she just turns to round the car to the driver’s side and leaves Lila to sort herself into the back seat. Five glances to her as she gets in and starts the engine. His arms are crossed and she can just see his knee moving from where he’s probably tapping his foot. She ignores this, too.

Careful breath in, careful breath out. She can do this.

Patch waits for them to put on their seatbelts. When neither of them does, she decides that’s not a current priority and just reverses out of the alley and on their way towards the waterfront and Diego.

Five is the first to break the silence: “So, what exactly are we expecting? What gang is this anyway?”

“Russians,” Lila says.

“Sort of,” Patch adds, interrupting Lila. “They’re… Russian adjacent. A splinter group, which is good for us and this insane plan. Only pissed off a small, very violent group instead of a very large and very violent group.”

“Yeah, they’re like, extra-Russian. It’s why Diego and I were looking into them—”

“Why the police are looking into them—”

“—because they’re more pushy and active than just the Russians. They’re… more traditionalists?”

Five blinks at them. “So, Soviets?” He shakes his head. “What does that mean for fire power, numbers, their set up? What are we walking into?”

“A lot of ‘em,” Lila says, unhelpfully.

“We’ve been scoping out their movements and properties for a few weeks,” Patch says. “They’re not large, comparatively, which is good for us. They usually have a dozen or so people at their warehouse at any one time, but it’s probably safe to assume that they’ll have more tonight with bringing Diego there.”

“Don’t you work homicides?” Lila asks.

“That is my job, but I keep an ear out for what Organized Crime is working with because my boyfriend likes to run face-first into their operations.”

“Our boyfriend does do that,” Lila says, and Patch can’t tell if that was a dig at her calling Diego her boyfriend or just a statement of agreement. Lila leans forward as they slow for some awkward traffic. “Can I turn the siren on?”

“No.”

“We’re in a hurry.”

“We also need to be quiet.”

Lila huffs a disappointed sigh and leans back again. She busies herself by heaving her duffle onto her lap and undoing the zipper. Five looks over his shoulder at her. “What’s our fire power?” He’s gone in a flash a moment later, falling through his seat to reappear beside Lila in the back. There’s a clattering as the two of them sort through the bag. Patch keeps an eye on them through glances in her rearview mirror.

Five lets out a hum of appreciation as he pulls a long case from the bag. Lila says, “I raided the house for what I could, that was a good find. I didn’t know you had that.”

“I’m pretty sure Dad used it to shoot rhinoceroses,” Five says. He lets out another appreciative hum. “You found the scope, too. I wasn’t sure where that had gotten to.”

“It was in a drawer, under one of those weird taxidermy lizards. You should clean that office out; it’s got a lot of weird shit in it. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. I feel like that portrait of your dad is judging me for not being available for purchase whenever I’m in there.”

“Maybe it would have been better if you had been,” he says distractedly, “who knows.” His focus is now on rummaging through the bag as it still rests on Lila’s lap. “Revolver, semi-automatic, revolver… You didn’t grab the pistol from the bar?”

“How was I supposed to know you keep a pistol on the bar?”

“Our house has been broken into how many times by people who want to kill my family, and you think I don’t keep a gun in easy reach of the entry?”

“Well, okay, but I did find the one off the hall, so I thought that was it. Since when do you like pistols?”

Five just gives her a long, disappointed look. “Since when I found one that fits perfectly in the false drawer Klaus doesn’t know about. This will work. A little light on ammo, but it’ll work. Patch, you’ve got your gun?”

Patch blinks at suddenly being addressed. This is a good opening, though. “I do,” she says, her hand unconsciously drifting to her belt where her firearm is holstered. “But we’re not using guns, unless we have to.”

Five and Lila give her twin looks of incredulity through the rearview mirror.

“We’re getting in and getting out as quietly as possible with as little lethal force as possible.”

Lila scoffs. “They kidnapped Diego. You’re trying to take them down, too. They’re not good guys.”

“That doesn’t mean we just shoot them. If your life is in danger, use whatever necessary force you need, but we are technically walking into an active police investigation, and, in case you’ve forgotten, I am also an officer of law. I’m not just going to shoot people.”

“They’re not going to just let us walk in,” Lila says.

“Then I ask that we all do our best to be smart about this and keep it from escalating,” Patch says, the use of we generous on her part. “We’re here.”

The roads had been getting darker as Five and Lila sorted through the guns in the back seat, and she’s just pulled them into an alley a couple blocks down from their target location. She kills the car lights. “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.”

“This is just embarrassing,” Five says, shaking his head as he unpacks the large rifle from its case.

The three of them stand on the roof of the next-door warehouse. Patch focuses on the cool ocean air blowing against her face to take her mind off her roiling stomach from the jump Five gave her to get up here.

“It looks cool,” Lila says.

“It’s impractical.”

Patch considers the Russian warehouse across from them, through its wall of windows that are offending Five so badly and giving them a direct look into the building. It’s mostly dark, a few lights on to reveal a man here or there, sitting on watch to varying degrees of alertness. Swinging, smaller lights dance along the halls as patrols move about.

“Anyone see Diego?” Five asks. He snaps the scope into place and heaves the gun up to look through; it’s nearly as tall as he is. Patch looks through her binoculars, taken from her car. Lila impatiently elbows Five to try and get her turn with the scope.

“No,” Patch says after a sweep. “But there are some offices in the far corner there and there’s a basement.”

“You’d think they’d have him tied up under a spotlight with how transparent this place is,” Five mutters. Louder, to them, he says, “Which are you feeling lucky about?”

She tries to remember if Organized Crime had any info about the warehouse layout that would give them a hint about where they would drag Diego. She draws a blank. “No idea.”

“If we fuck it up, they could take it out on Diego, we need to be right the first try.” He sighs. “I’m going to see if I can get us better odds from the other side. Stay here.” He disappears in a flash, taking the giant gun with him.

Patch drops her binoculars and waits for Lila to abandon her on the roof.

Lila studies the building for a long second before turning to crouch over the bag and sort through ammo.

Patch stands and keeps waiting.

Lila glances at her over her shoulder. “Might as well get comfy, he’s going to be a few minutes.”

“Really?”

“The Commission checklist he’s pretending he’s not running through on key points for storming a building takes five or so minutes to get through. Yeah, we’ve got time.”

“No, I mean… you’re not going to do anything? You’re going to sit and wait for him?”

“I’m not doing nothing, when this goes to shit we’re going to need to know all these guns are good to go. Are you sitting and doing nothing?”

Patch shifts, a little uncomfortable – she isn’t really doing anything. Still, “I can’t get down from here to do anything.” They all got up here through teleporting.

Lila jerks her head towards the far corner of the roof. “There’s a fire escape over there.”

“Oh.”

The wind breezes between them, throwing a chill down Patch’s spine. The waves lap far below, the water dark and cold.

Lila lets out a breath and leans back on her heels. She looks up at Patch, head tilted in consideration. “Why don’t you like me?”

“What?” Patch blinks. “I—I don’t. I mean, not—I don’t not like you. I don’t really know you.”

“You have an interesting way of showing that. I am helping, here.”

“I know!” She wasn’t expecting to have this conversation right now. “It’s, um, nothing personal.”

“No?”

“No, I just think… this is a delicate situation and you’re… impulsive. A bit chaotic. You can be a lot.”

The corner of Lila’s mouth quirks up, a mocking smile. “Wow, it sure would suck if you were dating someone like that.”

Patch closes her eyes, mortified. She could hear herself as the words were coming out of her mouth. “Point taken. That was… unfair of me. I’m sorry. I’m just worried about Diego.”

“You don’t think I don’t think you’re a little boring and have a stick up your ass?”

Patch opens her eyes to stare at Lila. Lila smiles back, more genuine.

“I don’t mind it. A little boring is good. If everyone was like me and Diego, the world wouldn’t stand a chance. Even with Five trying to run after all the fires.”

Patch huffs a nervous little laugh. “Yeah, that’s true.” She isn’t sure if she was supposed to agree with that or be offended or what. She needs to apologize better, still, though. She supposes they are going to have this discussion right now, on the roof of a warehouse they’re preparing to infiltrate to rescue their boyfriend. “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been very warm to you these past couple months. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around our situation and… I guess I take it out a bit on you.”

“Are you really giving me an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’?”

She smiles back. “Yeah, I guess. I just… I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who shared a man. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it.”

Lila studies her for a long moment. “Do you like Diego? Do you love him?”

She opens her mouth to answer, and it gets caught in her throat. It’s a genuine question she’s being asked, not anything possessive or digging despite it coming from her boyfriend’s other girlfriend. “Yes,” she says. “I do.”

“Then what more is there to it? You like him, he makes you happy, you make him happy.” She shrugs. Then she adds, “And I make him happy, and he makes me happy. And I’m here, too, and you’re here, too. Pretty simple.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Patch turns to look over the warehouse so she can escape look Lila is giving her.

“Hey,” Lila says, standing and stepping closer. “Look, I don’t think anyone grows up dreaming about how they’re going to share the person they love with someone else. I do get it’s a weird situation.”

“Do you?”

Patch didn’t mean it to be a real question, but Lila answers anyway, “Yeah. You and him had a thing, and then you died, and he was fucked up about it, and then we met when he was in the sixties and I was supposed to kill him but then I didn’t because…”

“He’s Diego.”

“He’s Diego, and then we made it back here where Five fixed everything and you’re back and alive. And Diego really loved you. Really loves you. And it’s not like he broke up with you, you bloody died. I wasn’t going to stop him from seeing you again. That would be pretty shit of me.”

Patch leaks another nervous chuckle. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you did.”

“Sure you would.”

“I mean, if you were upset that Diego still came to see me.”

Lila shrugs. “Well, I would. It would make me a real bitch if I held your miraculous not-being-dead against you and him.”

“Well, thanks.” Patch watches a patrol in the building cross between a few shelves. “It was weird. Is weird. We’d had one of our fights, broke up again, and then his dad died and I didn’t see him and… I thought maybe this one was going to be for good. I don’t know how much about… us, he’s told you, but we’ve been doing this dance since we were both in the police academy. I kind of thought we’d keep doing it forever. And then he did come back but he had this crazy story and I had died and—”

“And I was there.”

“And you were there.”

“Sorry?”

“No!” It’s odd to be saying all of this, for it to be coming out so simply. Maybe it really is this simple, like Lila said. “It’s—it’s like you were saying. If I accept that Five is fifty-eight and can time travel, and there was an apocalypse, and you all were in the sixties and spent months together and in this other timeline before you got here… I can’t hold it against either of you. It’s not like he cheated on me. I was dead, kind of. And we weren’t really together in the moment, anyway.”

“That’s very mature of you.”

“Well, someone has to be an adult in this relationship.”

Lila nods seriously. “It’s certainly not Diego.”

Patch smiles. “It’s not you either.”

The moment hangs between them. Nice, for once.

Patch breaks first. She looks back at the building. The wind is starting to cut from the angle it’s blowing across the bay so she steps forward a few feet so she can sit at the edge of the roof, get lower to avoid some of its knives. Lila joins her a few moments later. Patch holds out her binoculars to her so she can take a turn watching the patrols inside.

“When’s Five supposed to be back?” she asks.

Lila peeks to check her watch. “Any time, now. Although if he decides to run though getting Optional Storming Intel 2a he’ll be another couple minutes.”

“I am actually surprised you’re waiting for him, I wasn’t just being mean about that.”

She drops the binoculars properly to look at Patch. “Do you know how me and Five know each other?”

“You and him both worked for that organization. The time assassins,” Patch says. She’s been piecing together Five’s whole deal in the couple months Diego and all the Hargreeves have been back.

Lila nods. “Yeah, kind of. I grew up in the Temps, when I wasn’t at boarding school, anyway. My mum was his handler. Until he went AWOL and she got shot.”

Patch blinks. “I’m sorry.”

That brings Lila up to a genuine, surprised pause. When she’s recovered, she says, “Thanks. It’s… complicated, none of the others are all that sympathetic because she kept trying to kill them all, and me, but. Thanks. She was still my mum.”

“Do you miss her?”

She thinks about that for a second. She says, “I don’t know.”

Patch lets Lila have a moment with that. When she thinks enough time has passed, she pushes the conversation back. “So, you met Five through your mom?”

Lila swallows and nods. “Officially and unofficially. I’d see him leaving or coming as I was coming or leaving. Mum kept me away from him directly because she had her whole weird power dynamic thing going on around him doing his job and their fucking—”

Patch chokes on her spit. “What?”

“It was before he shrimpified himself,” Lila says, waving a hand. “I try not to think about it because it skeeves me out and makes me sad. Point is, I never actually met him until that mission in the sixties, but I knew of him my whole life. All that background is so that you know I mean it when I say that Five wasn’t just a Corrections Agent. You can never, ever tell him I said this, and I hate to say it but raw numbers don’t lie. He was the Corrections Agent, the best the Commission had. No one else had his success or completion rate, not even close.” She lets that hang between them, emphasize her point. “So, if he wants to take a couple extra minutes to make sure what we’re doing here can maybe go alright, I’ll give him the couple extra minutes.”

“Wow, alright,” Patch says.

“Only a couple minutes, though. If he wants more than that, fuck him, Diego doesn’t have that kind of time and his plans get cocked up fast, anyway. Gotta balance it.” She turns her attention back to the building and raises the binoculars up again. “Does that look like a fuse box, to you?”

“Where?” she asks, accepting the hastily passed binoculars.

“First floor, back corner, opposite the offices. To the left of that guy itching his ass.”

“Oh.” Patch finds what Lila is asking about. In the shadowy far wall, there’s a squarer shadow that just might be a fuse box. “Maybe. That could be helpful.”

Whumpf! “What could be helpful?”

Both women turn to look at Five behind them. Patch says, “There might be a fuse box.” Lila wordlessly holds her hand out for his large gun and its powerful scope to try and get a better look. He relinquishes it with some reluctance.

“Fuse box? That’s good cover to get in and buys some time while they figure out we broke it.”

“You didn’t spot it?” Lila asks, head hunched to peer through the scope. “Definitely a fuse box.”

Five gives her slouched back a sour glance but doesn’t rise to the bait. “Best estimate I’ve got is there’s sixteen goons split between the three floors, and safe to assume there’s at least a couple more with Diego, wherever they’ve shoved him. A couple of those sixteen are stationed by the offices, so that’s probably the best spot to start. Maybe we’ll be lucky.” Lila leaks a disbelieving snort. Five ignores that, too. “If he’s not there, then it’s the basement and we hope it’s not a maze down there. You can’t see it from here, but there’s stairs down in that back right corner, from us, separate from the rest of the building stairs, which could mean something or is just this building is truly designed terribly.”

“Hey,” Lila says, “this wall of glass is doing us a huge favor, stop knocking it.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining about that. I still just can’t believe they’re stupid enough to not realize what a security flaw it is.” His expression pinches slightly. “Unless that’s what we’re supposed to think…”

“I don’t think they booby trapped their big, special building just for Diego,” Lila says. She straightens and twists so she faces them both, lifting a leg so her foot rests along the roof’s edge and she can lean the rifle against her knee. “So. Feels pretty straight forward. We shoot the fuse box, give us some darkness and confusion to pop over to those offices in. Jimmy the locks, grab Diego, teleport out and Bob’s your uncle.”

Patch looks over the immense warehouse across the dock from them, at the sparse lights casting long shadows from the patrolling guards along shelves and stacks of crates. That feels too simple, but it might just be that easy.

Five has his arms crossed and is slowly working his jaw as he considers Lila’s proposed plan. Finally, he nods. “And Bob’s your uncle. Can you jump that far?”

Lila rolls her eyes. “Can you?”

He levels her with a flat look. Without looking away, he asks Patch, “Anything to add?”

She shakes her head. “No. I like it. Keep it simple, in and out. No one gets hurt. Anything else we need to do?”

The two former assassins are kind enough to keep their skepticism at her continued hope for nonviolence to quick flashes of indulgent doubt across their faces, Five more resigned about it than Lila. “I’m good to go if you are,” Five says.

“Great. I’ll kick us off.” Lila scoots back and shifts her position so she can support the long rifle and line up the shot.

Patch stands to move back and out of the way, ending up by Five as that seems a good spot to be for a quick teleport over. She mentally starts preparing herself for the vertigo and nausea the jump will give her. Five clears his throat.

Lila adjusts her grip on the gun, shifting herself again.

Five clears his throat more pointedly.

“I’ve got it,” Lila says.

“We have one shot,” Five says.

Lila adjusts her grip again. “We have the silencer.”

“So, you need two?”

“When’s the last time you did a shot like this?”

“More recent than you, I bet.”

“I had top marks at the range.”

“That’s nice for you. This isn’t a target range. Wind’s coming about 14 knots from the northeast, you accounting for that?”

“I know how wind works,” Lila bites. She aims the gun a bit more to the right. Patch glances between the two of them, not wanting to get in the middle of it but also finding herself preferring if Lila is the one to take the shot. She knows Five isn’t the teen he appears to be, but he does certainly look like one and she’s had to clamp down on her instinct to remove weapons from his young hands all night.

“Fuck!” Lila hisses, letting the gun fall and relaxing her stance. She levers herself up and thrusts the gun out towards Five. “Fine.”

Five smiles at her, unkind and victorious. He accepts the gun. “Thank you.”

“At least when you fuck it up you can’t blame me.”

“I won’t.” He and Lila switch places, Lila coming to stand beside Patch. She mollifies herself by picking up another handgun from the bag by their feet.

Five leans the rifle against a tall vent so he can shrug off his suit jacket. He folds it carefully to hang it on the vent. He adjusts his waistcoat and then starts rolling up his sleeves with practiced efficiency. Clothes set, he lowers himself until he’s laying at the edge of the roof and in position to use its low lip to help stabilize the rifle. He tucks the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and rests his cheek against stock so he can peer through the scope, one hand by the trigger and the other outstretched to support the long barrel. He takes in one careful breath and lets it out in a careful stream, then does another. “Ready?” he asks.

Patch says, “Ready,” while Lila mutters, “Just take the fucking shot already.”

Five doesn’t move a muscle. Evenly, he says, “When I shoot, Lila, jump to the offices. There’s probably a backup generator but you should have at least ten seconds or so of darkness to cover you before any backup lights come up. I’ll stay up here to cover you two until you’re done and have Diego or shit hits the fan. Go get my brother. Three, two—”

There’s a sharp, suppressed crack! as Five pulls the trigger. The warehouse is plunged into darkness at almost the same instant. Beside her, Lila grabs Patch’s hand and squeezes, the world folding and pressing around them as she jumps them across the harbor and into the gang’s headquarters.

Patch leans hard on her training to not gasp or make a sound as she’s released from the compressed embrace of space, shoving her roiling stomach down and forcing herself to blink in the dim light to orient herself to their new location. Lila drops her hand and falls to a crouch, Patch a half second behind her.

They’re in the warehouse, in the corner next to the suspected offices, the crates and shelves on the floor just illuminated by the moon and lights on the docks outside through the wall of windows. The men patrolling are calling to one another across the huge building, all shouts and harsh Russian syllables, but as far as Patch can tell the tones seem more irritated than panicked. The men Five had mentioned being near the offices are walking away from them, flashlights flickering towards the walls as they search for something.

Lila snorts. “God, they’re stupid.” At Patch’s silent question, she clarifies, “They don’t know where the fucking fuse box is, they think it’s a short in the system. I think they’ll be rather upset whenever they do finally find the box and find Five’s little crack shot in it.”

As she whispers that, there’s a deep hum that kicks in from far below their feet, and a few lights flicker back on. Patch and Lila glance up at them and then each other. “That’s the generator. Come on,” Patch says, turning her attention to the door.

Lila’s face falls as she does the same. “Shit.”

Patch frowns at her.

“Diego’s not in there.”

“We haven’t even opened the door.”

“Yeah, but I don’t feel…” Lila mimes throwing and shrugs. “He’s not in there.”

Patch takes a second to understand. “You can sense his powers?” Lila nods. “Alright, so, then, you can jump us down to where Five said the basement stairs are and we go from there?”

“Sure.” Lila grabs Patch’s hand again and clenches her fists. She freezes a second later and bites her lip. “Shit.”

“What now?”

“Five’s too far away.”

Patch bites down on a groan. Of course he is. “How close do you need to be?”

Lila leans out from their corner to look out over the room. “I might be close enough by the window.” She glances up higher, towards the neighboring building’s roof, and brings up a hand to make a pointed thumbs down motion towards it. “We should have gotten walkies.”

Patch leans out to see how feasible it would be to get them to the window and if that’s worth the exposure if it doesn’t get them close enough to Five. “They’re too loud for stealth,” she says.

“You have yours.”

“Because I’m police and you don’t have police—wait, why don’t you have Diego’s illegal Ebay radio?”

“Didn’t you take it off him last week?”

Patch grimaces. She had – he’d gotten in the middle of one of her crime scenes last week, trying to help but it is still the principle of the thing. He probably would have stolen it back from her tonight if their date hadn’t been interrupted by this whole disaster.

Lila snorts, understanding Patch’s silence for the answer it is. Patch asks, “To the window, or do we go for the stairs?”

“Window,” Lila decides. “If I can nab Five’s jumps, that saves us two floors of idiots to sneak around.”

The women nod at one another, glance around the corner again for any nearby Russians, and then break for the stack of crates across the makeshift aisle from them. As they make it to their next cover, there’s a loud, very angry exclamation in Russian from far below them. Lots of shouting follows it.

“They found the fuse box,” Lila translates unnecessarily.

“We’ve gotta move fast,” Patch says.

They dart to the next row of shelves. Heavy footsteps clomp below them and on the other side of the room. A few are coming upstairs but it sounds like most are staying below, which points towards more evidence that Diego is stored somewhere below.

Of course this couldn’t have been that easy.

“Any good?” Patch asks as they make it two rows away from the windows. Lila gives her fists an experimental clench and then shakes her head. She’s about to sneak across the next aisle when Patch grabs her shoulder and yanks her back down.

To their left, a goon steps into the aisle, flashlight flicking up and down the space. The man clutches a gun in his other hand. His heavy boots clomp on the concrete floor. Patch keeps her breathing as quiet as possible as he starts creeping towards them and hopes their position between two oversized crates keeps them invisible enough in the dim backup lighting. He calls something and someone answers him, too close to their right.

Lila wets her lips and silently pulls one of her guns from her waistband. Patch flicks the catch from her holster but doesn’t pull her own gun yet. “No killing,” she breathes to Lila.

“Do my best.”

The wait is excruciating as the goon slowly works his way down the aisle towards them, although it can only be a minute or so. They press themselves against the crate as he nears, clinging to the shadows. Patch rests her hand on her firearm as he arrives, his flashlight scanning over their hiding spot—

And past them. She lets out her held breath as he continues on, their position safe in the shadows deepened by the flashlight’s pointed beam.

Lila cranes her neck to check if the coast is clear and she nods a long few moments later. They cut across the aisle to the next dark space between shelves. As they arrive, Patch’s elbow just catches the edge and a soft clang of the metal reverberates out. Lila shoots a wide-eyed look to her as she freezes, cringing.

To their right, one man says something, and his companion answers. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, you’re idiots, Patch prays to herself.

Two pairs of heavy footsteps start towards them. Further away, someone calls something and one of their goons answers him. “Oh, not good,” Lila mutters.

The footsteps slow as they near. The two men talk softly again. They stop. Light from their flashlights pools a foot away from where Patch and Lila crouch, hidden.

Lila gives a pointed look across the last twenty feet they need to cross, a clear path before them to the window. “Run?” she mouths.

Patch twitches her head no. The enemy is too close, and if Lila is wrong and being at the window doesn’t get her in range to Five, they’ll be sitting ducks.

Lila just barely leans to check their other side. She jerks her head in that direction and brings a finger to her lips. Patch glances to the two men still standing a foot away from them gives a tiny nod. Silent, Lila slinks out, staying low and keeping a tall stack of boards between her and the goons. Patch creeps after her. They tiptoe their way down the aisle, exposed but putting distance between them and the two Russians.

It's then that they’re blinded by a flashlight shining directly into their eyes. Blinking quickly to clear her vision, Patch looks up at a third Russian, who appears to be just as surprised to have stumbled onto them as they are of him.

He shouts, fumbling to sort out his flashlight and his gun. Lila is already moving, rolling across the aisle and bringing her gun up in the same motion. Patch pulls her own from her holster and aims it at the man. “City PD!” she cries. “Drop your weapon!”

The man blinks at her, stunned. As her eyes adjust back, it’s clear he’s young. He’s lanky like he hasn’t finished growing into himself and his beard is patchy. “Police?” he asks, his accent heavy.

Her cry has also distracted Lila, which she is retroactively thankful for because she’s pretty sure that’s the only reason she hasn’t sunk any bullets into the man yet. Behind them, there’s a clatter as their original two goons push their way through their abandoned hiding spot to join the party. Lila spins, pulling her second gun so she can point both at the pair, and throws Patch a bemused look as she does.

The young Russian calls to the other two. “That’s right,” Lila says, voice forced. “We’re with the police. This is official and we’ve got backup coming.”

Patch bites her lip at Lila identifying herself as police, but she really brought that on herself. The call for him to drop his gun had been instinctual, his warning.

The three Russians throw a couple words between them. Patch watches Lila from the corner of her eye for her reaction, but she just frowns. “Drop your weapons,” Patch tries again.

“Police? Here for your man? He didn’t have badge,” the original goon says, his voice higher than she expected and his accent lighter than the younger one’s.

“This can all go down easy,” Patch says. She gives the young man a last, cautious glance before turning slowly to face the two behind her. As she does, her attention is briefly pulled out the wall of windows that stretches out next to them, both relieved and panicked that Five hasn’t done anything, yet, unsure what he’s waiting for. “We just want him, no one has to get hurt.”

The man grins. “Maybe too late for that, no?”

Lila’s expression twists and Patch throws a warning arm out at her to stop her from doing anything, even as her own heart lurches. She says nothing, just keeping her gun up and ready, her finger resting just off the trigger.

They all stare at one another for a long, long second.

Then there’s a ping of something flying through the glass, an immediate squelching, cracking noise, and the man behind them screams as his gun and flashlight hit the floor with a clatter. The two Russians in front of them blanch in surprise and disgust, their own guns dropping slightly as their focus is pulled. Patch and Lila involuntarily whip around to look at what has happened.

The young Russian hunches over himself, his arm clutched to his chest as blood spatters him and soaks his clothes. He whimpers. As he adjusts his cradle and the others’ flashlights illuminate him, it becomes clear that his right forearm is a gory mess, as a bullet has ripped through the delicate bones and meat of the wrist of the hand that was holding his gun.

“Oh my god,” Patch whispers, eyes wide.

“What a showoff,” Lila mutters. She returns her attention to the two uninjured goons. “There’s your fucking warning.”

There are footsteps moving below again, this time sounding like they’re coming up towards them. The apparent leader of the trio says a few words in Russian to the young man and then says, in English, “We talk.”

The young Russian looks up at them, face tear streaked and eyes wild. He sniffles a few times, trying and failing to regain any sort of composure. Lila is sending Patch some very pointed looks between the nearing Russian backup, herself, and the window. Patch tilts her head towards the window. Lila starts backing slowly towards it, gun up and using the guise of wanting to get away from the spattered blood as a cover. Patch does her best to follow, aware that she also needs to be near Lila for a jump to be of any use and that their current cover of everyone’s shock over Five’s shot isn’t going to last much longer.

As Lila nears ten feet from the window, the Russians finally realize that they have been moving. “Stop!” Guns come back on them and Patch freezes. Lila doesn’t, continuing her slow retreat. She makes brief eye contact with Patch and shakes her head. Patch grimaces.

“S-s-s-top!” the maimed Russian stutters out. They look to him, all rather pityingly. Setting his jaw in determination, and with a quick glance to his superiors, he bends and reaches out with a shaky left hand for his dropped gun. Grip clumsy, he manages to pick it up and lift it.

“Oh, no, don’t do that, kitten,” Lila says, her tone unexpectedly soft and… is that regret in her voice? It’s genuine, whatever it is. She adds something in Russian.

He stands as tall as he can with his right arm still tucked to his chest and fumbles his gun up to point at Lila. The whites of his eyes are visible as he stares them down. He breathes in ragged gasps. His grip tightens on the gun. “I said, sto—”

And that’s as far as he gets before half his head explodes, ripped apart by another bullet courtesy of Five. His body drops half a second later.

“Eudora!” Lila yells as two shots ring out, this time from inside the warehouse, Patch already flinging herself to the side towards her. As she rolls back to her feet, more bullets whizzing past her, she spins to see that the first two shots were probably from Lila, as the now singularly remaining Russian is bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his shoulder. His companion lies dead on the ground by his feet.

Patch catches Lila’s outstretched hand, her momentum carrying her to bump into the cool, thick glass of the window. Lila grips her hand, squeezing hard as the world starts to fold in around her. Her last glimpse of the third floor of the warehouse is the final Russian’s body snapping back as a bullet tears into the middle of his forehead while flashlights dance over the crates and shelves behind him, his backup arriving too late.

Space spits them back out and Patch gulps in a shaky breath, already falling into a crouch as her brain catches up with her new location. They’re in a new corner of the warehouse, presumably the first floor, now, although she can’t see around the stacked crates to confirm. Voices call out loudly in Russian as men clomp around looking for them. Lila crouches next to her, back pressed to the wall. When she makes eye contact, Lila jerks her head to a metal door to their left: the basement. Patch nods.

They wait for a group of goons to clomp past their shadowy spot and then tiptoe to the door. Lila covers her back as Patch carefully reaches for the knob – unlocked. She eases the door open and slips inside, holding it just wide enough for Lila to follow. She pushes it closed as softly as she can, although it’s doubtful anyone would hear the quiet click of its latch catching over the chaos above.

The door is thick enough that it does dampen some of the noise from the Russians scrambling, leaving Patch and Lila alone on a small landing above a steep set of metal stairs that twist around themselves. Peering between railings, they can see a hallway below, the floor a dark concrete and the walls rough cinderblock with a few doors cut into one side, all poorly lit by the same emergency lighting as was above.

Patch and Lila wait another moment, listening for any movement. They exchange another glance and Lila shrugs. Patch reaches back to flick the lock on the basement door. She whispers to Lila, “No Five, right?”

She shakes her head. “On the wrong side of the building for that. Who knows, he might join us down here, now that there’s no one for him to pick off.”

Patch blinks against the memories of the young goon’s wrist and head exploding. Her stomach plummets at a horrible realization. “He’s not going to shoot any more of them, is he?”

Lila gives her a look. It’s hard to read, if it’s pitying or sympathetic. “He never liked collateral. Come on.” She starts down the stairs, stepping carefully so her boots don’t clang too loudly on the metal steps.

Patch bites her lip; that wasn’t really an answer, although Lila seems to think it was. She decides for now to take it as a no, wishing she felt more confident about that.

She follows Lila.

When she’s halfway down and Lila has just reached the bottom, her gun out and held ready, there’s a flash and a clang from the top of the stairs. Patch swallows her startled surprise to spin in place and point her own gun up at the door, expecting a thug bursting through with a flashlight.

Five stands there instead, one arm out to brace against the closest railing and one foot awkwardly raised where it had appeared too close to the edge of the landing. The long barrel of the rifle sticks up behind his shoulder from where he has it slung. He frowns down at his foot before shifting his gaze to her. He raises an eyebrow at her gun pointed at him. She lowers it, refusing to be sheepish about it. “I was expecting more space up here, what is with these stairs?” he asks.

“They’re original,” Lila calls up, voice pitched low so it won’t carry far beyond them.

“What an architectural marvel this warehouse is.” There’s a whumpf! of air rushing to fill the space he was in as he disappears, reappearing below Patch at the foot of the stairs next to Lila. “Any sign of Diego?”

“We’re close,” Lila says. “I think just down the hall, maybe around that corner. Not far, though.”

“Feeling optimistic?” Patch asks. She finishes descending, stopping on Lila’s other side.

“More than that.” Lila pulls a coin from her pocket and flicks it. It arcs through the air, flipping and just barely catching the dim light to shine, before jerking to the side and slamming into the wall with a soft dink! It falls to the floor.

“Nice,” Five says. He adjusts how the oversized gun is resting on his back. “No one else is down here?”

“Not that we’ve seen,” Patch says. “That’s weird though. There should be someone here, right? Keeping guard or interrogating Diego.”

Five tilts his head in half acknowledgement. “Maybe. But it is just Diego, and they’ve already had him for an hour.” His jaw shifts. “And we made quite the entrance upstairs.”

Lila takes in a quick breath at Five’s reminder. “Yeah. Nice shots, by the way.”

“Thanks. Just like riding a bike. You two are good?”

Patch resolutely ignores the exchange. To Lila, she asks, “Can you track Diego? With your… thing?”

“I can tell if we get colder,” she says and starts leading the way down the hall. Feeling Five’s eyes on her, Patch follows.

The trio creeps along, pausing outside the doors to listen, but all is quiet. “Think everyone is upstairs?” Lila whispers as they reach the end, a branch to their left and right.

“I don’t think we’re that lucky,” Five says. “Which way feels like Diego?”

“I’ll scout, let you know.” Lila tiptoes to the right before either of them can say anything, gun out and ready. Patch waits, but Five doesn’t object.

She looks at Five, whose focus is on Lila’s retreating back, his own gun back in his hands and his finger lightly tapping above the trigger. She understands why what happened upstairs happened, and understands that, in the grand scheme of things, it probably went down as cleanly as it could have for how the situation fell apart.

Still, doesn’t mean she likes it.

But that’s not Five’s fault.

“Something you want to say?” Five asks as she continues to look at him.

Patch shakes her head. “No,” she says genuinely.

He glances at her, eyebrow raised.

“I appreciate the warning shot.”

He nods. “Wish it had worked.”

“Me too.”

They watch Lila make it to another corner. Five’s grip tightens on the rifle.

“It was good shooting,” Patch adds. “There and the fuse box.” If someone in the CPD shot like that they’d be the talk of the station, a minor celebrity on the force.

Five just twitches another shrug.

Lila chooses another direction and disappears from sight. Patch pulls out her own service arm. “Should we go after her?”

“No. If she’s not stupid she won’t leave my power radius and will just come back if she hits trouble. Or with intel.”

“Do you know what her range is?”

“Less than she’d like. We’ll give her a minute.” He makes no move to check a watch.

Patch nods and shifts her weight.

The hall is intensely quiet, her and Five’s careful breaths the only barely noise she can hear around the heavy, elevated drum of her heart in her ears.

Feeling the need to break some of the tension, and feeling like it’s only fair Five knows, she says, “Lila told me about you and her.”

Five’s expression twitches. “About her parents? You get along better than I thought you did.”

Patch frowns. “Her parents?”

“How I killed them?”

“You killed her mom? She just said she was shot.”

Five breaks his stare down the hall to frown at her properly. “Her mom—the Handler? No, that was a Swede. No I—that’s not what you meant.” He nods to himself and turns back to the hall. “It was… not an accident. But it was a job. I didn’t know. Not that that would have mattered, then.”

“Her birth parents,” Patch says, putting the pieces together. He nods confirmation. “No, she didn’t say that part.” Nope, that’s a significant detail Lila had left out.

“Whups,” Five says, sounding tired.

She is about to clarify that what Five implied was true – that Lila already knows this very heavy, very important fact – because it is not a secret she wants to be a custodian of, when there’s a flash and a whumpf! behind her.

“Good and bad news,” Lila says. “Which do you want first.”

“Bad,” Patch says, just as Five says, “Good.” They glance at each other.

Lila looks between them. “Good news, Diego is down there, door is locked but no guards outside.”

“And the bad?” Five asks.

“There is a room full of Russians directly opposite it.”

“Those would be guards, Lila.”

She shakes her head. “They’re on break.”

Five’s expression pinches. “They’re on brea—Okay, sure. How many?”

“Three. Maybe four, there was a corner I couldn’t see from my angle.”

“Armed?”

“Guns, but some had them off on the table.”

Five leaks a sigh of professional disappointment. “Any other point of entry into the room?”

“No, just the one door.”

“Okay.” He absently rubs the back of his neck as he thinks. “We don’t know what sort of shape Diego is in. Lila, you blink in to unlock his door and let Patch in and give us an option for an exit, you two deal with whatever that situation is. I’ll take care of the break room.”

“Alone?” Patch blurts.

Lila and Five just glance at her before returning to each other.

“She has a point,” Lila says.

Five scoffs. “The caliber of agent they employ here doesn’t have me particularly worried. If I need help, I’ll give a yell.”

“I’ll keep my ear out, then, for when you need help.”

He starts down the hall instead of responding. Lila rolls her eyes and then jerks her head at Patch to invite her to follow after Five.

Patch focuses on her breathing, keeping it quiet and even, overcoming the urge to hold her breath as she trails Five and Lila.

We don’t know what sort of shape Diego is in.

She’s been focusing on the logistics of the operation, keeping the two former assassins reined in, one step at a time, the reason for this whole debacle carefully tucked into the background. But at the end of this hall, behind a locked door, will be Diego (if Lila’s power-senses are reliable). He might just be embarrassed and tied to a chair, or he could be in much, much worse condition.

Glancing to Five and Lila just ahead of her, the pair doesn’t seem very worried. They’re professionals, though, like she is, so she scans the corners of their faces she can see for tells. They step carefully on practiced, silent feet. Five is focused on the open door on the right side of the hall, where the three (or four) goons he’s taken responsibility for wait. There’s a tightness about his eyes and a tic going in his jaw. He holds his rifle, one finger tapping gently just above the trigger; after another few taps and another few steps, he smoothly slings it over his shoulder.

Lila’s attention is on the door to the left, the locked one hiding Diego. Her expression is neutral, a similar tightness to Five’s in it despite her teasing a minute earlier, no trace of her usual shit-eating grin to be found. While she holds her gun at the ready, her other hand keeps drifting down to finger nervously at the beaded wooden bracelet on her wrist.

Something in Patch relaxes having caught Five and Lila’s worry. It cements what she already knew: they’re all here on the same mission, united in their love for Diego. She can trust them.

They reach the divergence point. Wordlessly, Lila and Patch press themselves to the leftt wall, just before the sightline from the breakroom door, while Five slinks to the right-hand wall, creeping forward until he can just peer inside. He peeks around the doorframe, pulling back a moment later. Looking to them, he flashes three fingers, tilts his head to the room, and then jerks his chin to Diego’s door.

Lila let out a small breath at the confirmation of three goons and gives a nod of her own to confirm Five’s plan. Patch mouths “Non-lethal!” across the hall to Five, who raises his eyebrows in condescension in response, but the corner of his mouth twitches up, too.

Five leans to the doorway again before pausing. He considers something for a moment and then pulls the rifle back off his shoulder. He holds it towards Lila, who frowns in surprise but stretches out to accept it. Now unarmed, Five rolls his shoulders, gives them a last quick nod, and then disappears in a small flash of blue and whumpf! of displaced air.

There’s a chorus of confused Russian voices from in the room. Patch starts towards Diego’s door, but Lila holds up a hand to stop her. A chair squeaks and clatters and there’s a sharp crack! of something hard making solid contact with something softer. Blue flashes illuminate their dim hallway as the scuffle intensifies, and then something hits the door and it slams shut with a bang!

“Now,” Lila says, passing the gun to Patch and disappearing in a flash of blue of her own.

Suddenly alone, Patch fumbles to catch the unexpected weight of the rifle. It’s too long and unwieldy, she understands why Five passed it off – in the tight space of the breakroom, it would only have been any use as a club. She gets the shoulder strap sorted and slings it to her back, clearing her hands again to help with Diego or pull her service weapon if needed.

She startles as a large body thunks into the breakroom door. There is still a lot of angry sounding Russian coming from inside. That’s probably a good thing, she decides, means Five is still up and causing them problems.

Patch turns to Diego’s door, creeping closer and straining her ear for any movement inside. Shouldn’t Lila have opened the door by now? Why didn’t she teleport Patch inside with her? Is she rescuing Diego herself, leaving Patch sidelined out here, after everything?

The lock clicks and the door cracks open, Lila on the other side and motioning quickly for Patch to slip inside. Patch does, pushing that embarrassing bit of jealousy down deep. “Sorry,” Lila whispers, “they had all this shit in the way.”

All this shit turns out to be the contents of a broom closet. It’s a long, narrow room with rusted metal shelves climbing up either side, full of dusty stocks of cleaning supplies, lit by a singular, sad lightbulb dangling in the middle. A sad group of mops droop in the far corner, next to a heavy metal door. Boxes and buckets litter the floor, a haphazard pile of them shoved under the lowest shelves to make more room at the door.

“What the hell?” Patch blurts.

Lila shrugs. “This place makes no bloody sense. I think this is good for Diego, though. Not enough space for good torture.”

Patch swallows against both the words and the too-casual way Lila says them. She takes in the cramped room, again. “You’re sure he’s in here?” She slings the rifle back off to return to Lila; she has to have more practice than Patch carrying around its awkward wait, and she wants to be ready for whatever is behind the next door.

Lila accepts the gun easily and lightly kicks a plastic bucket lid into the air. It improbably flips over itself in a graceful arc to land perfectly on the top shelf. Patch nods her acquiescence. “One place to look,” Lila says. 

They pick their way to the metal door, Patch leading. She tests the door handle – unlocked. She unholsters her gun and holds it low, ready. Glancing over her shoulder at Lila, who rolls her eyes for her to get on with it, she holds up her other hand to silently count down from three. As her last finger drops, she opens the door just enough to slip through, gun held ready near her hip. She can feel Lila on her back, pushing to enter immediately after her.

The room they enter is dark, the weak light from the bulb behind them useless. Behind her, Lila fumbles at the wall. Light blazes on a second later, buzzing from cold, fluorescent lights set into the low ceiling. The room is all concrete and rough cinderblock. A metal shelf sits against one wall, full of drills and hammers and pliers that make the cleaning supplies in the previous room more ominous. A flimsy desk and chair are squeezed into one corner, a messy pile of papers on top of it.

And in the center of the room, tied to a sturdy metal chair with his back to them, is Diego.

The knot that’s been churning in Patch’s gut since she arrived at the Umbrella Academy eases at the sight of him. He twists in the chair, trying to look over his shoulder despite the bonds and he yells something in Russian at them. Patch steps farther into the room, into his field of view, and tucks her gun back into its holster. At the sight of her, Diego breaks off mid-word, mouth hanging open in surprise. “P-P-P-Patch!? How—Why are you here?”

Not taking Diego’s surprised words as the accusation they sound like, Patch takes in her boyfriend. All things considered, he looks pretty good. His lip is split and one eye is swollen shut, a bruise is starting to bloom on his cheek. How he’s moving, she thinks he might have a bruised or cracked rib or two, but it could also be how he’s tied to the chair, with his arms behind him.

The knot eases further as she’s certain they arrived before any of the tools on the shelf could have been used.

“Had to save your sorry ass,” Lila says, stepping to Diego’s other side. Diego startles again and whips to look at her, wincing as the quick movement pulls at an injury. Lila gives him a huge grin. “Your accent is terrible, by the way.”

“Yeah, well. I was never that good at Russian,” he says, turning his head to try and see both of them despite the puffy eye. Patch takes pity on him and moves closer to Lila. “You’re both here?”

“What, you expect me to just sit at home?” Patch asks, some warning in her voice.

“No!” Diego backtracks. “I thought—you don’t—since when do you like each other?”

Patch catches Lila’s eye. Lila twitches a brow up. Patch gives her a small smile in return. “Why do you think we don’t?” she asks back.

“What, you think because you’re such a big man, we have to be fighting over you?” Lila adds. She shifts and crouches to start freeing Diego’s hands. Patch moves to start on his feet.

“No!” Diego says again. “I just thought—” He wisely cuts himself off.

“Are you okay?” Patch asks. She splits her attention between the rope in front of her and Diego’s bruised face above her.

He nods. “Yeah, they didn’t get too far. Took a while to get me here, and then they were all rushing out when a generator failed, or something, before it could get really fun.”

Whumpf! “You’re welcome for that,” Five says.

Diego startles again, trying to turn to see where his brother appeared behind him but only succeeding in pulling on his injuries as Lila and Patch haven’t finished freeing him, yet. “Five!?”

“Hello, Diego,” Five says, circling around.

“Why are you here?”

“Because he cares about you, too, you idiot,” Lila says. “There we go.”

Diego lets out a relieved sigh as his arms are freed. He stretches them slowly before tucking his left arm along his ribs – something definitely bruised there, then. Patch frowns at her own uncooperative knot as she keeps picking at it.

A hand taps at her shoulder, and she looks up to Five holding out one of Diego’s knives for her. He has the rest of Diego’s knife harness dangling from his other hand. He’s a little disheveled from his fight, his lip fat and a few blood splatters on his white dress shirt, but otherwise looks fine. She nods her thanks and cuts the rope.

“Did they want anything?” Five asks as his brother continues stretching and taking inventory of his injuries.

“Nah, not that we got to, anyway. Just pissed me and Lila were poking around their shit.” He shoots a guilty glance to Patch. Patch just raises an eyebrow. They’ll have words later; right now, she’s just relieved he’s alright.

Five passes Diego his harness. They make eye contact, and Diego gives him a small nod that Five returns. As Diego struggles to shrug his knives back on, Five turns to take in the rest of the room.

“Oh, that’s just sad,” Lila says and moves to help Diego get his left arm through the strap.

“You sure you’re good?” Patch asks softly.

“Yeah,” Diego says. “Just knocked around a bit. Nothing I can’t manage.”

“Not the point,” she says. She reaches out and barely brushes her fingers along his bruised cheek. He leans into it. “But I’m glad you’re okay. You’ve made a mess.”

He stiffens suddenly. “Oh, fuck, our date.”

Patch rolls her eyes. “I don’t care about the date.”

“Sorry about the mess, and the date,” Lila interjects. “This was probably more exciting though, eh?”

“It was more something, for sure.” She sighs. “Let’s get you out of here. Can you stand?”

“For sure.”

With a glance to each other, Patch and Lila silently move to either side to help support him. “Five, take—” Lila shrugs the long rifle off her shoulder to hold out to Five but cuts herself off. “What are you doing? Come help us, you little wanker.”

Patch looks up to see Five intensely investigating the metal shelves. He’s already gone through the desk, the papers now in disarray.

“What did you guys say you were looking for, here?” he asks.

“Diego,” Lila says, but she’s tilting her head in interest as Five runs a hand along the back of a shelf.

“Info on how they’re connected to a new drug smuggling ring,” Diego says. “And they’ve completed some hits, dunno if they were ordering them or just filling them out.”

“Nothing, because none of you should be here,” Patch says. She sighs. “But we are missing evidence to tie some gang suspects to homicides that would help us make arrests.”

“Well,” Five says, “maybe we can find all that behind this secret door.” He pulls something behind the shelf, the metal screeching before giving with a muffled thunk! With some effort, he pulls the shelf so it swings open, its metal side scraping lightly on the floor along worn scuffs Patch hadn’t noticed in the dim light and distracted by Diego.

“Oh my god, secret door,” Lila breathes.

“I knew that,” Diego lies.

The three of them lean as one to see around Five as he steps into the newly exposed room. He fumbles to the side for a moment before finding a light switch. Fluorescent bulbs flicker on.

“Oh, shit,” Patch says.

The revealed room is long and cramped, more concrete and cinderblock. Wooden crates take up most of the floor and one wall is lined with racks, full of shotguns and rifles. Five nudges the lid of a half-closed crate with a toe, revealing blocky handguns. The far corner is taken up by a sagging folding table, laden with thick briefcases. Five and Lila both tilt their heads at them, Five blinking to a clear space near it and reaching out to grab one.

“Don’t touch anything!” Patch interjects. “You two especially.” She glances at Five and Lila; their fingerprints wreak havoc on the department’s forensic results, pulling up cold cases from decades past. Extricating herself from under Diego’s shoulder and making sure Lila has him well enough, she picks her way around the cluttered floor to Five. He watches her navigate the obstacles, one eyebrow up in indulgent amusement. When she reaches him, he waves a hand in invitation for her to look at the briefcases.

Ignoring him and pulling one closer, she carefully flips the latches and lifts the lid. Thousands of large, carefully stacked bills greet her. Patch makes a quick estimate of their sum, then glances at the four other briefcases on the table.

“They’re very liquid,” Five says conversationally, having done the same quick math she did. He points at something poking out from behind the cases; the corner of a fat manila envelope. She nods her thanks at Five not just grabbing it himself and pries it from its spot. She unwinds the string holding it closed. Carefully, Patch pulls the first sheet of paper out just enough to see what it is: the description of a target for a hit. One she thinks happened last week, if she’s remembering the vic right.

“What is it?” Diego asks. Patch glances back; he and Lila are still at the door, Diego mostly using the shelf for support now, rather than Lila.

“Hit contract.”

“Well,” Lila says, attention on the guns lining the walls now that the briefcases ended up being so mundane, “there’s your evidence.”

“Yeah,” Patch says. She lets the paper slide back into the envelope. She brings a hand up to rub at her eyes and lets a sigh escape.

“This is good, right?” Lila asks. Patch can hear the frown in her voice.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, this is good. It’s just…” Her mind, already tired from a long day and her fear for Diego, is starting to kick into gear to figure out a plausible narrative for tonight, one that will cause the fewest problems in paperwork and prosecutions.  “It’s going to be a long night.”

“We’ll help,” Diego says immediately.

Patch smiles despite herself. “No, we need to hand this over to the Organized Crime. And you guys can’t be here when I do that.” She turns from the table, rolling her shoulders back as logistics start to slot into place. “Let’s get out of here.”

“How fast can the department get here?” Five asks.

Patch glances at her watch – it’s late. To get the call out, to get officers back in and over to the water front, calling in SWAT… “Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.”

Five nods towards the file. “I’d grab that, then. Lot can happen in fifteen minutes.”

She takes it from the table, tucking it under her arm for security to traverse back to the door. Five grabs her elbow instead and the world folds away. Patch’s stomach lurches and she involuntarily gasps for breath when reality returns, her and Five now back in Diego’s torture room. “Thanks,” she manages.

Five already let her go, his attention on his brother and Lila. “Move,” he says, waving a hand for them to get out of the way. Diego shuffles awkwardly out of the doorway, Lila on his heels. Five flips the light off and throws his shoulder into the heavy metal shelf, shoving it back into place to re-hide the room. They all wince at the sharp scrape of the metal on the concrete, and the screech of the latch as Five forces it back into place. That done, he returns to the desk. Patch frowns as he further messes up the papers there, instead of neatening them.

“Why?” Diego asks.

“Would be stranger if we didn’t look for anything,” Lila says.

Five nods. “Divert suspicion, keep them from emptying the evidence room before Patch’s people can get here. Sorry about the fingerprints,” he adds to Patch.

“It’s okay.” She looks to the door; they’re so insulated in this room, its impossible to hear what might be going on in the rest of the building. “How fast can you move, Diego?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Five says. He looks to Lila. “You know where the car is from here?”

“Of course I do.”

“Can you reach it?”

“Can you?”

“Great, you want the idiot or Patch?”

Lila glances between Diego and Patch. Diego and Patch exchange a confused frown.

Lila sighs. “You can have ‘im. You’ll probably jostle less.”

Five is kind enough to not comment on that, simply stepping to trade places with Lila. He grabs his brother’s elbow. Lila does the same to Patch. “Deep breath,” she says as warning before she tugs Patch into space with her.

Patch is appreciative of the heads up, but the experience is still no less nauseating. Stepping back into reality, the cold night air slaps her face, and the sharp tang of the salty bay is strong on the wind. She opens her eyes as Five appears, with a soft whumpf! of air and a groan from Diego. They’re back by her car, the night dark and quiet in the alley, blocks away from the gang’s hideout.

Five deposits his brother against the trunk of the car. “You should make your call,” he says to Patch before he disappears again in a flash of blue.

“Where the hell did he go?” Diego asks, arm wrapped protectively around his ribs. Patch dials the station to get the response team rolling.

“Finish cleanup,” Lila says.

Patch pauses in her instructions to dispatch. “He’s not going to…?”

Lila rolls her eyes. “No, not like that. He’s just neat. We left guns on the roof. And he’s probably cleaning up some of our tracks to give your boys more time to get to the evidence.” She turns to the car. “Are we taking this or are we getting you back via the Five express?”

“I vote car,” Diego says quickly, his grip on his side tightening.

Patch grimaces in apology. “I need my car. Yes, I’m still here, sorry.” She returns her attention to dispatch. She turns her back on Diego and Lila as Lila steps closer to him, her hand resting possessively on his chest, her voice low as she says something to him. Patch has a job to do now, she can be jealous later.

Although, she notes absently, the jealousy she’s tamping down in her stomach isn’t as sharp as it used to be.

Five reappears the same moment Patch is finishing up her instructions to dispatch, a few minutes later. He’s wearing his suit jacket again, retrieved from being abandoned on the roof along with Lila’s duffle bag of guns. “Those Soviets sure are mad,” he says conversationally to announce his return. “Lot of running around going on in there. Hope you called in enough guys, Detective.”

“Well, I called for everyone, so we’ll see if they listen.” Patch half glances up to the sky, her ear out for the sound of helicopters and sirens, even though it’s still a few minutes too early for that. “I’ve got this covered, get him to help.” Diego reaches out for her. She steps to him.

“Sorry I messed this whole night up,” he says.

She shrugs. “We’d had too many peaceful dates, we were due.”

He smiles. “Those were good, though.”

“They were.”

“I do owe you, though. Something really nice. To make up for…” He gestures vaguely to encompass their disaster of a night.

“You do. You can make it up by taking me to Angelo’s next week, for the full tasting menu.”

He raises his eyebrows in mock surprise, his eyes bright and soft, “Wow, you were ready with that.” He curls a hand around her hip, gently pulling her closer.

“$315 a person,” she says. “Pay up.”

He leans away slightly to better look at her. “I thought you hated fine dining.”

“You hate fine dining,” she says. “I think paying that much for tiny portions of food is stupid, but it is supposed to be delicious and think it would be fun to do once, and…”

“I do owe you,” he finishes for her. “Angelo’s it is.” He leans in then, hesitating for half a second to give her a chance to pull away if she’s still mad at him. She doesn’t, meeting his lips with hers. It’s not a kiss for the ages – she can taste his blood on his lips, she can feel him wincing as their angle pulls on an injury, and she’s too aware of Lila hovering a few feet away – but it has her relief and his apology and their love all in it and that is what matters.

She brings a hand up to cup his cheek as they pull apart. “I am glad you’re okay,” she says softly.

“Me too,” he says. “And I am sorry I fucked our night.”

“It’s okay. If I didn’t want you to stop interfering in active investigations, I’d say you did good work tonight and that a lot of people will be safer for how this is going to blow a lot of cases wide open and get some very dangerous people off the streets.”

“Well, thank god we did, then!” Lila interrupts.

Diego stiffens, then relaxes when Patch just rolls her eyes. She steps back, opening her moment with Diego back up to the rest of the group. Lila joins them, positioning herself between Patch and Diego so she can throw an arm over each of them.

“If you’re all quite done,” Five says dryly. Patch looks over to him; he’s standing with his back to them, hands in his pockets and slightly stooped under the weight of the gun bag, attention firmly on the street beyond. He looks over his shoulder to confirm they’ve finished with their mushy feelings.

“Yes,” Patch confirms. “You guys should get out of here. My captain should be here soon, and I need to debrief her of the situation.”

“Great!” Five says. “Have I got him again?” he asks Lila.

“Yeah, just pop back so I can get back, too.”

Five shrugs. Diego starts to protest but it falls on deaf ears as Five unceremoniously grabs his arm and pulls his brother into space with him, throwing one of his little salutes to Patch before the two are gone.

Patch turns to frown at Lila, who hops to seat herself on the trunk of Patch’s car. “Why didn’t you just go with the—”

“I am sorry we fucked your night,” Lila interrupts. She tilts her head slightly, taking in Patch. “But… I think maybe this was better.”

Patch scoffs lightly. “In what world was this better than a simple date night?”

“For us.”

She’s about to scoff again, but something in Lila’s expression stops her. She thinks to their talk on the roof, to their silent teamwork navigating the hideout. The quiet confidence and trust they’d shared for one another. “Yeah,” she says instead. “Maybe.”

Lila grins at her soft agreement. “This is going to be great, you’ll see.” She reaches out to cup Patch’s cheek, just as she had done to Diego a few minutes before.

Before Patch can process what Lila’s next move will be, there’s a flash and a whumpf! of air behind her. “Diego’s getting checked by Mom, you good to go?” Five asks.

Lila drags her hand from Patch’s face, her fingers trailing, her thumb pausing for a breath on her lips. Then her grin widens and she leans to plant a quick kiss to Patch’s cheek. Pulling away, she says, “I’ll see you around, Eudora”, and hops off the trunk, using the motion to fall into space and disappear, back to the Academy and Diego.

Patch stands rooted to the spot, breath a little shaky for some reason. She can’t even turn when Five says, “Let us know how it all goes down. ‘Night, Detective.” and leaves as suddenly as he’d returned.  

Slowly, she brings a hand up to touch the cheek Lila had kissed. It feels warm, hot even.

The distant sound of helicopter blades beating in the air shakes her out of her stupor. She takes a deep breath and refocuses, patting her hands through a practiced check that her badge, service arm, and walkie are all where they should be on her belt. She bends to pick up the manila envelope that she hadn’t notice slip from her grasp when Lila kissed her.

The last thought she allows herself as she turns to go catch her boss up on the situation is to make a mental note that maybe she should add a third plate for the date at Angelo’s next week.