Leo closes his eyes, hands clenching his hips. He hangs his head and mutters under his breath, "God, I hope so."
I open my mouth to tell him how stupid that is. Snow wouldn't have given me carte blanche over how to complete the mission if she wasn't prepared for me to break the boundaries of what most people would consider acceptable. She's a smart woman and seems to have been in the agency business for a long time. She'll have known exactly what kind of thing I'd be asked to do by Bullet.
Leo might not like it. North might not like it. Hell. Snow herself probably doesn't like it. But the fact remains, getting Rohan back is the priority, and me doing what I did was a necessary step in securing that goal.
Leo starts talking again before I can offer up my objections to his fears, cutting in front of them impatiently.
"I'll give North our report whilst you shower all this off.” He wrinkles his nose at the blood peppered across my skin and clothes, revulsion clear on his face. "We'll figure the rest out when he's gone."
I'm assuming by "figure out the rest" he means pointlessly arguing about things which have already happened and won't be changed by analysing it in the way I'm certain Leo will want to.
Recognising the resolve in Leo’s voice, I know there's zero point in fighting with him about this. When he gets to this level of stubbornness, it's like trying to kick down a wall of titanium. "What are you going to tell him?" I ask, more than a little curious.
"I'm going to lie my arse off!" Leo snarls at me, canines flashing like he's going to do something with them if I don't get with the program and stop questioning him. He waves a hand at the door. "I'll say Bullet played around with us for a bit, but that eventually, he took the money as agreed."
"You think he'll believe that?" I ask doubtfully, regretting the question the second it leaves my mouth when Leo shoots me a venomous glare.
"It doesn't matter if he believes it." Leo shrugs aggressively. "He can't prove otherwise, and as long as he has something plausible to write up in a report to Snow, I don't think he'll fight me on it."
Leo's probably right about that. I don't think North would be surprised to learn what I did to get the information from Bullet, but I'm equally sure he'll accept Leo's version of events if there's nothing to actively contradict it. Hence the reason why Leo strong-armed me into the bathroom and demanded I clean myself up before North could get a look at me. We could've explained away the blood, told him Bullet set his men on me for whatever reason, but it'll be easier if we don't have to tell any more lies than necessary.
"Alright." I dip my head in a nod, fully aware Leo couldn't give a toss right now whether I agree with his plan or not.
Leo glowers at me like I tried to argue with him rather than immediately capitulating. He lets out a torn-off noise of anger and makes to storm out of the bathroom, pushing past me and throwing over his shoulder, "Make sure you scrub your nails. North will notice dried blood under them."
I grab hold of Leo's bicep, stopping him. He turns his head to meet my eyes when I tug him towards me, his arm bumping up against my chest as we stand together in the bathroom doorway.
He looks at me with suspicion but doesn't speak. His eyes travel over my face, taking in the blood again and again, like he's committing every red fleck to memory so he doesn't forget them after they're washed away by the shower.
"Thank you," I tell him because I understand that his agreement to lie to our handler is entirely for my sake. "For still wanting to protect me."
Leo's expression doesn't soften, not by a single inch, but he leans in closer to me, unafraid despite everything. He lets another pained sound rip from his throat. "I'll always protect you, Jack. Because—" He stops, seemingly unable to find the right words to explain.
I get a sudden flash of memory from the night we met. When I was cuffed to the toilet, and Leo said he would protect me if I let him. I couldn't understand why he would offer such a thing, not genuinely, not truly meaning it. I asked him why he would do that, and he said:
"If you can, you should," I say, so quiet it's barely audible.
Leo releases a long breath, almost a sigh but not as deep. He avoids my gaze and makes a valid attempt to hide his emotions from me. "Yeah," he murmurs. "That too."
My eyes are drawn to his mouth as they often are when he's standing this close. His mouth, always so quick to smile, always so soft under mine. I remember how it twisted in disgust when he realised what I'd done to the extremists, how it flattened out into contempt when I used what I'd done to get Rohan's location from Bullet.
It slices away at my insides to acknowledge I might never get to taste him again, might never be permitted to bask in the light of his happiness.
When Leo pulls away from me, I let him go. He walks out of the bathroom, leaving me behind with my dark thoughts and nihilistic predictions about our joint future.
I spend far too much time in the shower, scrubbing away any signs of blood. Hacking people apart is an inevitable disaster in terms of spray control. Blood can be like sand: it gets everywhere. It's likely no matter how thorough I am, I'll still find dried patches of red behind my ears a few days from now.
OI was brutal when hosing us down after a particularly vicious assignment, using a literal power hose. The first time they did that, I was ten, and the fucking thing almost took me off my feet with its shockingly strong blast. Dan got smacked into the tile wall behind us and screamed his head off, successfully managing to scare the hell out of the guards with the ferocity of it. I'm not sure if it was intentional on his part, but the high-pitched, maniacal laugh he gave when he noticed their fear did not go unnoticed or unpunished.
Once I'm done in the shower, I get changed into clean clothes and join the others in the kitchen.
I find Leo and North sitting opposite each other at the kitchen island. They seem to have reached the companionable-silence portion of the debrief, indicating Leo is done filling our handler in on a very-modified version of the last day's events.
North looks up when I come into the room and watches me carefully as I make my way over to stand beside Leo.
"Agent Roth, your partner has given me the mission rundown. I don't suppose you'd like to offer the same?"
North doesn't seem like he had any trouble believing what Leo told him. I could read him asking for corroboration of Leo's story as suspicion over its validity, but North asks me for my report after every mission. He always gets the same response from me as well.
