For lindenmae
Title: (All I Wanted Was) Danger
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: torture, violence, cursing
Summary: When your partner is too busy making nice with the ladies to remember the mission, you just gotta do all the work. (for fanfic)
Notes: 8059 Thank you, Alias and Nikita 2010 for providing the secret agent formula in my life. Title is from the eponymous song by The Milk.
From the prompt: 8059 Spy Au, Gokudera has all the gadgets but Yamamoto gets all the ladies. Gokudera is not amused and Yamamoto only wants Gokudera. Insert 007 love gadgets and possible torture scenes here. I hope this serves well. Enjoy!
Gokudera is standing next to the Lithuanian ambassador’s nephew, debating football teams, running a wiretap on the opulent mansion’s phones, and scanning for the stolen nuclear warhead that intel thinks is somewhere below their feet. The first task is easy; like any self-respecting man of Italian descent, he’s a fierce proponent of gli azzuri and effortlessly tears apart young Pavel’s tentative suggestions that England had a chance at the top this time around. The third task is also fairly simple. His modded up Android smartphone that he essentially built himself can place a call, translate the incoming voice into seventy-three different languages, and also place an order for the closest Indian takeout simultaneously. It can run a simple scan for nuclear warheads through countless layers of cement, no problem.
The second task though, involves his partner actually doing his job and setting the wire tap in place in their host’s office before Gokudera can establish any readings. From what he can see though, doing his job is significantly restricted by the scads of scantily clad society women that his partner is shamelessly seducing. Yes, all. At once. Even their target’s mother.
“Smokebomb, is the tap in position?” his handler asks him over his comm. Gokudera doesn’t react, just coughs twice for no. There’s a little, nervous sigh and Gokudera feels angry on behalf of his poor, brilliant handler who is plagued with fools. No worries; his best agent is about to get the job done!
“Excuse me,” Gokudera says aloud and marches off, allowing his relieved conversational partner to grab a drink and drown his depressed hopes for the World Cup. Pretending to adjust his bowtie in a mirrored soup tureen, Gokudera activates their comm link.
“Pinchhitter, did you get the bug in place?” he snaps quietly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gokudera watches with increasing irritation as his partner laughs and scratches his head.
“- and I thought, ‘there’s so many people, it’s impossible to get away!’ Well, naturally that’s-” the comm. cuts out and Gokudera scowls as Yamamoto tries to catch his eye over the head of a particularly high blonde upsweep.
“Useless,” Gokudera snarls quietly and turns away haughtily. He resists the urge to corner those gaudy floozies and demand they have a little taste instead of flinging themselves at every tall, broad, and handsome dumbass. Did he say handsome? He meant moronic. Scanning the ballroom, he sees that their target business man is in conversation with his date for the evening, a tiny blonde thing with a gentle laugh. Stiff and good-looking in an outrageously expensive Savile Row suit, their target looks every inch the smooth, self-assured business man he proclaims he is. His actual transactions though, are far dirtier and suspect; the dossier that Gokudera has on his desk has nearly twenty pages dedicated to every unscrupulous, illegal, and threatening deal the man, Rodger Mordechai, has ever made. Fortunately, the target’s weakness for a good party on level with Hollywood’s best and most gratuitous made it easy to sneak into his usually well-guarded manse. Gokudera spares a moment to wonder how the pretty girl next to him can stand to party with a human-rights terrorist who is likely harboring nuclear weapons in his own home. “He’s out here,” he tells his partner. “Keep an eye on him; I’m going in.”
Gokudera sees Yamamoto jerk his head slightly, but doesn’t bother to stay. He slips out of the ballroom and down the wood-paneled halls of the mansion. Tapping his toes twice, he activates the noise-canceller for the soles of his shoes and quickly jogs down the hall silently. Stupid manwhore, Gokudera thinks viciously as he glances at his smartphone, now displaying a 3-D blueprint of the mansion as well as an automated orientation feature and a blinking red trace to his location. If that Yamamoto could keep his head out of his pants then maybe they’d actually get assignments done a lot quicker. Maybe he should suggest to Reborn that they give Yamamoto facial reconstructive surgery. Make him plainer. Uglier. Give him a snaggle tooth so he can’t blind anyone with that perfect smile.
At the door of their target’s office is a security guard, looking murderously bored and glumly picking at a plate of hors d’oeuvres. Gokudera quickly cases the hall, and debates his options. The bathroom excuse would only create more suspicion when the guard wakes up disoriented and concussed. Same with the tranq dart he’s got loaded in his watch. He’s blinks as the crackle of the guard’s walkie-talkie breaks the silence. Ah.
Quickly activating his commlink, he links wirelessly to his phone and flips it to the same frequency of the walkie-talkie. Then, gruffly, he barks out, “Position Four, suspicious activity in western wing. Investigate.”
The guard jerks, and attentively listens before setting his plate down on the chair and striding off in the opposite direction. Smirking, Gokudera slips out from the shadows and pads to the door.
He takes a second to assess the lock before fishing in his pockets for his pen. Twisting the cap neatly to reveal a skeleton key, he slots it into the door, clicks it to the left, and allows himself a smug smile as the door swings open soundlessly.
“I’m in,” he informs Yamamoto and his handler softly.
“Be careful,” his handler tells him and Gokudera smiles brightly, even though there’s no one to see him.
“Of course, Boss! I got this.”
There’s no coherent reply from Yamamoto, only a brief sound byte of his stupid stupid laughter and the tinkle of champagne glasses. He’s probably sweet talking some floozy with talk of his fancy cars. Cars that Gokudera built, so technically belong to him. He scowls briefly and sets to work.
The tap is easily set in place-Gokudera’s own invention, with some contribution from Gianni, he reluctantly allows, is almost undetectable. He fishes out from his pocket a roll of black electrical tape carefully unwinds five inches of it and tears it off at the perforated lines. Then, he simply winds it around the phone cord, measures, sets, and sends the frequency to his handler, and he’s done. The wireless transmitters within the tape itself take care of the rest.
Gokudera relaxes a little and looks around the office with distaste. It looks like a hunting lodge decorated by someone who’s never gone hunting before, all ostentatious polished wood and lusty rugged colors. Huge heads of bison and deer stare down mournfully from the walls, and a giant polar bear rug glares accusingly at him from the floor. Gokudera scowls right back and defiantly sets himself down behind the fancy wooden desk, squeaking boldly in the outrageously comfortable ergonomic chair. His phone beeps softly, and he sees that it’s finished calculating the underground parameters of this mansion. As he scans the results, his heart begins to pound and his stomach drops to the pits. There’s no nuclear warhead-not even a whiff of uranium amongst the entire five acres of property. But there is an underground complex, and a thickly reinforced one at that, with ventilation and plumbing. At least four of the rooms have steel lined walls. And among the outline of the chambers, are dozens of blinking red life-detector signs. There may be a thousand reasons as to why Rodger Mordechai has at least thirty people stored away in his underground bunker, but Gokudera is plenty willing to bet they aren’t ones he’d like.
“Boss,” he croaks over the link. “I’m sending you the scans right now. It’s not exactly a nuclear warhead but you’re not going to like it.”
“When have I ever,” his handler sighs long-sufferingly. There’s a few moments of silence as the file uploads and opens. There’s another couple of seconds as his handler digests the information. “Ah, crap,” his handler says feelingly. “Smokebomb, we need to have more for HQ than this, you understand?”
“Yeah, Boss.” He boots up their target’s computer. “I’m on it.”
The computer is password locked, but Gokudera skipped two grades. He double majored in chemistry and psychology, has an advanced cryptographic training, a MA in mechanical engineering, and an eidetic memory. Also, the password is taped to the bottom of the screen in Cyrillic, but Gokudera is also a polyglot. Take that, Takeshi ‘I can say ‘hi’ and ‘beer’ in twenty-two languages’ Yamamoto, he crows silently as his fingers fly over the keys.
Once in, he flicks his pen out again and lays it against the top of the computer, setting the wireless transmitter to download the contents of the harddrive. For man so involved in shady activities and illegal transactions, Rodger Mordechai’s computer security is laughable-for Gokudera at least, who hacks through in less than two minutes. He pulls up the files, glancing through them, and growing increasingly horrified as he realizes the scope of Mordechai’s business ventures. There’s no bungled nuclear warhead locked deep in the basement, but a human trafficking ring. And according to these files there’s at least twenty girls underground right now, waiting to be auctioned and shipped off in the next bidding race. There’re even cameras set up in the underground bunker; Gokudera watches, horrified, as thin, pale girls, some as young as ten or eleven, huddle on dirty, rusty cots. There’s no separation of space, no bathroom, just a few blankets hung up in the corner, but the cameras are positioned so you could see the buckets behind them.
“Smokebomb, you got it?” his handler asks testily through the comm.
“I’m linking you to the video feeds right now,” he answers shortly, typing furiously. “Boss, this guy is a piece of work.”
“Ah, geez,” his handler sighs unhappily after a moment. “Alright, okay. I’m calling in Reborn on this one. You and Pinchhitter get out of there.”
“Yes, sir,” Gokudera says under his breath, signing out and swiping the pen from the computer. His handler’s line cuts out, only to be replaced by a flurry of sound that has him flinching.
“-aught red-handed,” Yamamoto’s voice is saying jovially, but there is a sharp edge of panic underneath. “Man, his dad just walked right in on us chasing the cat in his office. And what’s worse, his dinner guests were with him too, ahaha-”
“Oh, crap,” Gokudera swears and freezes as the door to the office clicks and swings open. With moments to spare, his brain latches on the first ploy that crosses his mind. He fumbles with his shirt and hair, managing to disarray himself as artfully as possible just as Rodger Mordechai walks in with his date and two shady looking men, one scarred old man that looks like a relic of the Cold War, the other a scrawny youth with a strong resemblance to a weasel. They freeze when they spot Gokudera lounging behind the desk, legs crossed and on the table top, shirt unbuttoned and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He is, very seriously, trying to project ‘come hither’ brainwaves. It is a lot harder than it looks, and he pauses a moment to resent that Yamamoto never had any trouble whatsoever playing and being mistaken for a male hooker. It’s not a thought he ever wants to have again.
“Hey there,” Gokudera drawls huskily pretending desperately to be languidly boneless; he thinks he’s succeeding more at nervelessly demented. “Got a light?”
“Who are you?” the business man blusters. He is a jowly, broad-shouldered man, but his eyes are sharp behind the choleric presentation. He takes in Gokudera at the computer, and his jaw tightens.
“Mordechai,” old scar-face growls lowly, but Gokudera throws them a haughty smirk (rigid lip-twitch), frantically trying to stall.
“Is this for all four of you, then?” he asks lazily, letting his eyes slip to each figure in the room, pretending to ignore the tensing for weapons. “Hm. Your man only paid me for two,” he tells the business man reproachfully, swinging his legs off the table and standing up. If he can just make it within five feet of them, he might be able to hit the big one with his tranq dart, and release the knockout gas in his bowtie and get away before the alarms sound. The girl, he notices, is closest. Oddly enough, she doesn’t look apprehensive.
“Stay right where you are,” Mordechai growls, pulling out a Glock and leveling it menacingly at him. “I don’t know what game you are playing, but I don’t buy it. Cheap male prostitutes,” he sneers, “don’t wear Astor and Black.”
Gokudera blinks. “You could tell,” he says, a little pleased despite himself. “Good eye, sir. You have better taste than I expected.” His expression darkens then. “Too bad you’re peddling little girls in your underground bunker, you sicko.”
He yanks at his bowtie, but it’s too late. The rodent-face creeper has been creeping ever closer to him and manages to jam his knee into his gut. Gokudera doubles over, gasping, and rams forward, tackling the man to the ground. He flips to his feet, ignoring the pain, and grabs the closest floor lamp, swings it like a bat and knocking one of the security guards off his feet, thwacking another one upside the head. There’s more guards now, pouring in from the office door and surrounding him. Gokudera bares his teeth, prays that Yamamoto is still undiscovered-a sack cloth drops over his head, and his feet are kicked out from under as strong, rough hands drag him from the room.
On his knee, there is an old scar from a car accident he’d been in at a young age. His mother had been driving, and someone had slammed into them from behind, revving the engines and ramming them forward. They had been traveling alongside a tall cliff, had nearly gone into and through the guardrail but by a stroke of luck, the bumpers had locked and when their car squealed to a one-eighty stop, the centrifugal force had thrown their attackers off the cliff instead. Both his mother and he had survived relatively unscarred, but Gokudera’s knee had slammed straight into the glovebox, and needed a brace. Even now, the patch of skin there is still slightly numb, and aches with the changing of the weather.
This ache is what he’s feeling as he comes to. It’s bitterly cold; the chattering of his teeth is probably what pushed him into wakefulness in the first place. Also, his head is throbbing and sore. Before he finishes his first groan, something hard and cold slams across his face. Bright bursting stars fill his sight momentarily as the pain jolts him totally aware. The impact is sending reverberations through his entire body; he thinks blood might be dripping from his smashed cheekbone except that he can’t feel it through the numbness.
“Good morning, Mr. Spy,” someone drawls, and Gokudera’s head is jerked back roughly; his vision is filled with the looming figure of Mordechai. The man is staring down at him smugly, and, if the pain in his head hadn’t been so intense, Gokudera would have thought it a proficiency test his handler’s boss Reborn had set up, because the business man is also stroking an evil looking cat.
“Piss off, Dr. Evil,” he says instead, as well as he could, with his cheek bleeding and throbbing and feeling ten times its normal size.
The business man tilts his head, frowns, and a big man with brass knuckles steps into view. ‘Ah,’ Gokudera thinks wryly as he spots flecks of his blood along the metal surface. He snaps his head into the second punch, but still spits out a tooth. Bitterly, he thinks if they keep this up, he’s going to look like a marshmallow for the next week. If he still lived. He spares a brief moment to feel horror at the thought of his mother having to bury him with his face looking like Jet-Puff.
“Mr. Spy, you will tell me who you work for, and what you have stolen from me,” Mordechai continues in his restrained, European accent, stroking his pissed off cat. “Come, be frank. I am giving you so many opportunities.”
“Might have worked better if you left my face in working condition,” Gokudera manages. The business man and the big man exchange looks before the former shrugs.
“Very well. Pietro,” he says, and Pietro obligingly sinks his brass knuckles into Gokudera’s gut instead. “Is that better?”
“Damn fuck shit,” Gokudera croaks, trying to breathe.
Mordechai makes a gesture of prompting.
Swallowing blood and bile and saliva, Gokudera resists the urge to spit at him. “If you think I’m telling you anything,” he sneers, “Then obviously you’re wrong.”
“They always make you work for it,” the business man sighs, addressing his constipated-face cat. Gokudera hopes it pees on him.
“It’s my job,” Gokudera shrugs, then sneers. “Deal.”
“Oh, no. I understand, perfectly,” Mordechai assures him. “We all have our parts to play. And I must admit I do find occasional satisfaction in my role.”
“That is why you have that cat,” Gokudera states flatly. “Because today you’re channeling your inner Blofield.”
“I do love a good Bond film, Mr. Spy.” The business man raises an eyebrow at him. “But this is getting wearisome. I can guess from your accent you are an American-the CIA then, or a shadier branch thereof? What is it today, APO? Division? And your tiresome accusations, ah.” He makes a dismissive gesture. “Well I suppose if you are against that sort of business. I never touch those girls myself, understand. There simply is no need.”
“So now you know everything,” Gokudera says slowly. “Why am I still tied here?”
Smiling narrowly, the business man wags a finger at him. “I see you have dodged my demands with one of your own. Still, that is a very good question, Mr. Spy, and one I have no answer to. Pietro.”
Gokudera feels a flash of anger and fear before Pietro hauls him up, the aluminum chair now dragging painfully from his tied wrists. His breathing is cut off with a gurgle and a choke as hard pressure slams into his throat.
“You don’t need this mouth anymore,” the man rumbles in heavily accented English as he digs the knuckles into Gokudera’s throat.
Gokudera gurgles resentfully at him, not even bothering to fight the gagging and the choking that is part and parcel with throat-crushing. Hopefully he’ll be able to vengefully hurl all over Pietro before he manages to die here, but before that happens, he’ll make Pietro dance to a couple more tricks up his sleeve. Literally. Gokudera manages a ghastly grin as he fumbles between his two hands for his cufflinks. Spots are dancing across his vision, but he just needs to get them loose from his French cuffs. The little gold links, shaped like round billiard balls are beautifully heavy and taper down into razor sharp tips that he manages fumblingly to stick into his rope bindings.
“C’mon,” he rasps painfully, forcing the air past his mangled throat, “hit.. best… shot.”
Pietro grins delightedly; even Mordechai, having retreated back some steps chuckles at his audacity. The big thug pulls back his fist, loosening the grip on his throat, and that’s when Gokudera taps the sides of his shoes together as hard as the bindings allow and kicks into Pietro’s knees. The steel spikes that now jut from the tip of his shoes tear round red holes into the big man’s leg and with a roar of pain and shock, he crumples, dropping Gokudera and his chair.
Gokudera gasps for breath, the rush of oxygen dizzying and precious even if breathing in is nearly as painful. There’s more people there now, dragging Pietro away and righting his chair. Someone slaps him across his bruised face and Gokudera can’t help the harsh short cry that burns out his throat. The business man is standing close once again, and his expression matches that of his cat.
“You come into my home, ruin my party, steal from me. And now you handicap my best man. Tell me, Mr. Spy, how assured of do you want your death?”
Gokudera works his mouth then grins and bares his bloodstained teeth at his captor. “Trust me,” he hoarsely whispers, “I’m just getting started.”
His bindings finally falls loose as the cufflink razors work through the last strand of rope; Gokudera swings both arms and fling the little gold links at the business man at his cronies. A blinding light and bang explode from the tiny flashbombs as Gokudera nervelessly fumbles with his ankle bindings. He grits his teeth against the pain, picks clumsily with cold, numb fingers and curses when Mordechai stumbles into him and yanks him up by his collar.
“Clever boy,” Mordechai praises through clenched teeth. “But how dead you are.”
And that’s when the door blows in.
Gokudera has fallen in love three times in his entire life. Marcia Giacomini when she shyly let him dismantle her father’s pocket watch to see the gears turn. Morgan Christy at university, who ripped apart his papers with casual, sadistic ease and then sucked his brains out through his cock. And now, Takeshi Yamamoto, looking a little dusty and wild around the edges, but brandishing his tiny phone with the GPS locator programmed to pinpoint his partner, and even better, a well-aimed SIG. It’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen, helped further by the fact that Yamamoto’s tie isn’t even crooked. And if only for that moment, Gokudera will admit wholeheartedly that it isn’t totally a stupid, banal thing to be a little bit enamored of those piercing amber eyes and well-muscled limbs. Especially if they’re directed towards rescue efforts.
Of course, the moment passes like a fart in the wind. “Hey everybody. Sorry I’m late to the party,” Yamamoto laughs happily and Gokudera just barely resists the urge to thud his head against the floor. “Gokudera, hey, you look like you need a hand.
“Really fucking keen, douchenut,” he rasps back harshly and gets a forearm around his throat for his troubles. The cold metallic circle of a Browning levels intimately against his temple, pressing firm enough to bruise.
“Now you,” the business man rumbles above him. “You, I know. They call you the Pinchhitter.” He sneers. “What an asinine nickname.”
Gokudera secretly agrees with him; he’s been telling people ages that it makes Yamamoto sound like one of those creepy guys that hang out behind strip clubs and swoop in on unsuspecting bachelorette parties.
“Hey,” Yamamoto offers. “You might wanna let him go.”
“And why would I want to do that?” The business man retorts. Yamamoto smiles sunnily as he jams an elbow into the nose of a thug trying to sneak up behind him. That’s right, Gokudera thinks, keep him talking.
“Well, you know, I’ve worked with this guy for a while now,” Yamamoto says conversationally. “And haha, while I’m not exactly the smartest guy in the world, he’s pretty close. In most cases. Sometimes, not really, haha. But you know, we have this microwave in the office kitchen, and it never worked until he started playing around with it one day.” Yamamoto smiles brilliantly.
After a moment, the business man grudgingly asks, “So?”
“Well, you still can’t make a bag of popcorn with it,” Yamamoto admits, shifting his weight and smiling blandly. “But let me tell you, it gives a whole new meaning to microwave.” And as he flicks his wrist, the hilt of a sword falls into his palm, and with another, the blade unfolds and snaps into a long, unbroken line. The best moment for Gokudera is when all the thugs pause and reel back momentarily at the sight. He will never find the looks on their faces not funny.
“Well,” Mordechai says after a moment. “Had I known we were getting medieval…”
Gokudera barely represses a snort. “Like you’re one to judge, you sixties throw-back,” he shoots back.
“Listen, you putrid little shit,” the man growls in his ear. “I’m-”
There’s a rush of wind as Yamamoto makes his move, and first the scar-faced thug, then the scrawny one drops rapidly with a cry of surprise and pain. Gokudera finds the hold on himself loosened, and he falls to the floor as the business man’s gun jerks away and aims a knee-jerk shot at the blur of swordsman. Gokudera loses no time; he sweeps Mordechai’s feet out from under him, then rolls and jams a thumb into a pressure point on Mordechai’s arm. With a cry, he drops the gun, and Gokudera shoves it out of reach as Yamamoto’s sword point comes to a gentle rest against Mordechai’s adam’s apple. All three of them suddenly find the battle over, the day saved (or ruined), all, inexplicably, set to the faint but unmistakable strains of Freddy Mercury, wailing about champions.
“What is that?” Mordechai ejaculates after what is a thoroughly surreal moment.
“That is the sweet sound of your defeat,” Yamamoto informs him cheerfully. “This sword also comes with a fully equipped mp3 player. So I can even customize the soundtrack of my fights.”
“Dumbest thing you’ve ever convinced me to do,” Gokudera rolls his eyes, but flushes when Yamamoto’s eyes flicker to him and soften briefly.
Mordechai laughs softly then, his throat vibrating around the metal tip. “Well now, gentlemen, what will you do? My men are no doubt converging on the scene, and your exits will be quite hampered.”
His words are lost in the growl of a car engine, and suddenly the entire wall behind Yamamoto comes crashing down as several huge SUVs roar into the space, trailing dust, plaster, and hordes of armed agents in SWAT team black. Some of them are dragging dazed and cowed thugs behind.
“Mr. Mordechai,” a young, female voice calls. “You have been surrounded and your assets seized. Please come quietly.”
Gokudera and Mordechai gape as one of the agents steps forward. She pushes up her goggles, and Gokudera recognizes Mordechai’s date from the party.
“Kyoko,” the business man hisses. The young woman just flashes her badge and a warrant at him.
Her tone is businesslike and firm and her expression is pleasantly bland. “Kyoko Sasagawa, of Interpol. I represent an international force of Lithuania, Russia, Japan, Cambodia, Laos, and the Democratic People’s Republic of China. You are hereby arrested on charges of human trafficking, kidnapping, bribery, extortion, human rights abuses, and destruction of public property,” she recites brightly, ignoring his outraged shouting. “Come with us quietly,” she urges, tucking her wallet away and walking up to them. “It’s over.” Mordechai’s eyes darken. Gokudera wincingly stands and gets out of the way as more agents congregate around them.
“You frigid bitch,” the business man spits as he’s hauled to his feet. Unwisely, he lunges at her and just as suddenly, the woman’s black booted foot slams upwards between his legs, cutting off any more attempts at threatening movements. Gokudera watches dumbly as the Interpol agent calmly dusts her hands off as she regards the business man now curled into himself in pain. Her eyes meet his, full of concern and kindness.
“Are you alright? Do you need a doctor?”
Gokudera shakes his head dazedly, and she smiles at him, a little doubtfully.
“I’ve been in contact with your handler,” she says instead. “I believe we’ve agreed that you and your partner’s presence here are a complete coincidence that just happened to overlap with my presence,” she informs him serenely. On the floor, the scar-faced henchman twitches awake and makes an abortive move towards his gun. Kyoko kicks the weapon out of reach and then pins him back down with a firm stomp on his back without breaking eye contact with Gokudera.
“I- uh,” Gokudera fumbles, suddenly incredibly tired and feeling a little dizzy as he feels the adrenaline disperse. “If that’s what he says.”
Her expression softens as she takes in his listing body. “Well,” she tells him. “In that case, perhaps it is more convenient if you and your partner were to slip away then, before my liaisons and superiors demand to know how you two are relevant to my case.”
He almost bristles at her possessive towards Mordechai, but decides to leave it as Yamamoto suddenly appears next to him, bracing an arm under his shoulder and dragging him out of the warehouse and into the surrounding wilderness.
The struggle to keep up takes up all of his attention, so Gokudera says nothing about the too-tight grip Yamamoto has on his waist, or the way his partner keeps murmuring soothing nonsense into his ear. Gokudera ignores it all, until Yamamoto gently tucks him into the passenger seat of a black Audi S4.
As Yamamoto starts the car and steers onto a one-way forest path, Gokudera sighs and sinks into the nice leather interior.
“Thanks,” he says grudgingly, watching as trees flash by. Yamamoto chuckles from besides him.
“You gave us quite a scare there,” he tells Gokudera. “Tsuna wanted to bring in the big guns.”
Gokudera winces because Skylark, aka Kyouya Hibari was one of their most effective, yet gratuitously destructive agents. After the debacle in Rome involving the nuns, Trajan’s Column, and two truckloads of dried pasta, he’s been considered a measure of last resort. Hence, big guns status.
“Well,” Gokudera grunts. “Glad you weren’t so distracted by those bimbos that you couldn’t do your job.”
“What are you talking about?” Yamamoto laughs in disbelief. “Gokudera, I spent two hours searching for you in the woods because I thought they’d already dumped your body before I remembered the tracking locator you tacked into my Blackberry. I didn’t even have time to look sideways at any of those girls!” The expression on his face sends thrills up Gokudera’s spine.
“Really? I mean,” Gokudera coughs, “So what?”
Yamamoto gives him a look that says clearly ‘you are such a head case, but I love you dearly anyways.’ Abruptly, Gokudera’s face grows hot and flushed. It’s probably the broken face from the stupid brass knuckles, he assures himself. He coughs again, and squirms in his seat, wincing at his sore injuries.
“Really?” he repeats again though, trying to sound nonchalant, but pulling off timid. Yamamoto glances at him out of the corner of his eyes a few times, and Gokudera thinks his ears are turning pink but it’s dark and he can’t tell and anyways, Yamamoto just stuck the car in park. “What-”
Yamamoto leans over and Gokudera feels dry, chapped lips press gently against his, thoughtfully wary of his battered face. Stunned, Gokudera blinks, staring at Yammaoto wide-eyed. The moment stretches too long, and even in the shadows, Yamamoto’s eyes shutter visibly, and he begins to sit back. But something stops him. Gokudera barely realizes it’s his own fist in Yamamoto’s lapels, but he’s still grasping for words.
“I look like a marshmallow,” Gokudera blurts out, then reels back, horrified at himself. The laughter is expected, if not welcome, and carries a healthy dose of relief.
“Hayato, I think I’d love you if you looked like the Michelin Man,” his partner professes fervently, inspiring a terribly conflicted feeling of dismay and flattery in the object of his affections.
“Oh my god,” Gokudera says, pained and a dull red. “You’re such a moron,” he declares before reeling his partner in and kissing him back earnestly, if a bit gingerly.
“Oh, absolutely,” Yamamoto breathes, with a deliriously happy grin.
Inside Gokudera’s battered, cynical ribcage his heart is beating like a kettle drum and he feels heady and giddy like the time he sold his first patent to the CIA. Yamamoto, the agency’s favorite son, Most Eligible Bachelor three years running, and last year’s winner of the Mr. CIA pageant, liked him back, oh my god, oh my god!
For a moment, Gokudera doesn’t register the noise; he’s savoring the taste and smell of Yammaoto, sweet and sharp, like champagne and blood and wild, clean rain, an addictive and overwhelming combination. But eventually, it filters through.
“Ahem. Er. Erhem. Uh. Guys. Hey. Guys?”
Gokudera reluctantly tries to puzzle what it is, then his eyes snap open and he shoves Yamamoto back into his driver’s seat with an ‘oof’.
“Oh my god, Boss, oh my god,” Gokudera babbles hysterically, in his panic jamming the intercom off, then on again, then off. Unprofessional conduct, his brain shouts hysterically and unhelpfully. Unprofessional conduct! Yamamoto grabs his hand, ignores his glare, and calmly turns the intercom on.
“Haha,” he says out loud. “Sorry Tsuna. We got distracted.”
“That’s uh. I mean. Okay. Please don’t ever do that again where I can hear it,” Tsuna replies, sounding mortified. “Gokudera you okay?”
“Completely and totally hale and hearty, Boss!” Gokudera hastily reassures him, glaring as Yamamoto sneakily covers his hand with his own. He doesn’t pull away though.
“Still,” Yamamoto adds, “Have Shamal be on standby. He got worked over pretty badly, and he’s barely able to talk.”
“Ignore him, Boss!” Gokudera says, shoving Yamamoto’s face away. “I’m great. Can’t wait to get back!”
There’s a brief crackle of laughter over the soundsystem. “Good to hear, Gokudera, but I still want you to report directly to Shamal, understood? He’ll be waiting for you at the extraction point,” Tsuna says warmly, still embarrassed but relieved. “You’ve got us some great intel, and it looks like Interpol will owe us a favor or two. See you in two hours; we’re going home.”
“Sure thing, Boss. See you then,” Yamamoto agrees peaceably. The intercom cuts off, and after a moment of silence in which Gokudera tries to think of what to say, ranging from “but you have like, fifty girlfriends,” to “so, hey, there’s this really good Italian place I know.” Instead, he waits until Yamamoto turns onto an actual paved road before blurting out, “I’m not going to be your fucking Honey Ryder so you can get your head out of any lewd delusions you have.”
But Yamamoto just shoots him a fond, if slightly puzzled look. “Well, I’m not looking to be the next James Bond either. If it’s alright, I think I’d just like to be Takeshi, and you be Hayato.”He pairs this with a smile so bright Gokudera feels something inside him catch embarrassingly on fire. He squirms, blushes hotly, and decides that his next invention on the agenda is, clearly, a spray that makes him impervious to attractive people. But then Yamamoto squeezes his fingers affectionately, and Gokudera scowls, but squeezes gently back. And decides that perhaps the smarter move is to outfit Yamamoto with a tracking trip and female-repellant spray instead.
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Note from the poster: For some reason I was having massive trouble with the formatting. I tried to put it back in order but if I fucked up the original formatting I'm really sorry. PM me, anon, if you want anything changed.