The room looks eerie without a dozen warm bodies occupying it and waiting for orders. The remains of a briefing take up every screen on the back wall, so at least the light makes good company. General Morales, anxiously pacing lengthwise beside Adya in the center, hardly qualifies as such.

Nate slips through the open door and wipes the sweat from his palms. He makes sure to move slowly, gripping at the wall when he gets dizzy; this is the most physical action he’s seen in well over a month. Whether or not it was worth it remains to be seen.

“You’re lucky I didn’t just have them tow your car,” General Morales says.

“I’m lucky to still have my head,” he responds.

The door slams shut. “‘I’m still lucky to have my head, General’. And look at me when I’m speaking to you, Agent.”

“General Morales, it was my idea--” Adya begins.

“I’ll get to you in a minute, Cadet. Anastasio, I trust that you haven’t forgotten how you got here in the first place. I also trust that you wouldn’t blow it all in exchange for some common criminal. We put a lot of faith in you all those years ago, and losing it would be tragic for the both of us.”

He grips at the edge of his seat. Dangling his future in front of his face and threatening to take it all away; he went through it once with the Brotherhood and refuses to endure it again as an agent. But he knows better than to argue right now. “Yes, General.”

“Do you understand what you two just did?”

“Dangerous comes to mind, General.” But ultimately successful.

“How about reckless and stupid?” She folds her hands in front of her and eyes him with a stare that could burn him out of his body like an ant under a magnifying glass. He tries to hide the intimidation by shoving his hands into his pockets. Breaking eye contact is an immediate death sentence. “You sent your cadet into an active crime scene, and for what? She almost got her teeth kicked in for a chance to catch a suspect we would’ve been chasing anyway. Do I need to remind you who your cadet is, Agent?”

Nate opens his mouth soundlessly. He settles back into his chair when Adya’s arm reaches across him, insisting that he stop. “I am just like every other cadet, General. I’m getting kind of tired of being held to a different standard because of--” she gestures broadly to herself-- “everything. Agents were sent after the suspect, but nobody was sent to tend to the wounded. It was my idea, and I only wanted to make sure they were okay. I know it was reckless, and I’m sorry, but I… I don’t regret it.”

He tries to keep his eyes from dropping into his jaw. Never in his wildest dreams has he spoken to the General with that much authority. Even as a twenty-year-old cadet, newly sober and ready for a fight, he took every punch for every bad decision. She certainly isn’t taking after him.

General Morales sighs and allows her tone to soften. “I wouldn’t put it past President Armstrong to see you as a ‘one-strike-and-you’re-out’ situation, Adya. If anything makes him doubt your abilities to become an effective agent, he’ll pull you out. And that is something I have no say in.”

“I am aware of how he sees me,” Adya responds. If she’s trying to hide the bitterness, it’s not working. Nate hears how it soaks up her words like gauze against an open wound.

General Morales glances up at the door, where a third body slips through and stands at attention against its back.

“Lieutenant Rivera. I don’t remember asking you to be here.”

“I authorized it,” Val says. “I gave Cadet Prisham the order to move out. Agent Anastasio offered his car, but that’s all that he was involved in.”

Nate snaps his head around and communicates the loudest ‘no’ he can with his widening eyes. She doesn’t even glance at him.

“Technically, Nate’s injury meant that all of his responsibilities regarding his cadet were handed over to me. I did what I felt was right. I know it was… ambitious, but we have the suspect in custody and nobody was critically injured. That first part wouldn’t have been possible without Adya.”

Stop it, Adya mouths.

Val exhales, straightening out her shoulders. “You can check the mission logs. It’ll be there.”

General Morales pinches the bridge of her nose and faces the wall. Nate can tell that she sees right through Val, but can’t be bothered to give a third lecture. She shoos her three subordinates to the door without another word or another glance.

Nate practically trips his way into the office with how Val drags him by the ear down the hall. He catches himself against the desk and falls into the chair, trying desperately to keep the dizzy spots in his vision away. The training center is filled with agents at this time of day; he shudders at the thought of what they’d see if the windows weren’t tinted.

“I’m not gonna be around to cover your ass forever,” she says.

“I didn’t ask you to! I was more than willing to take the fall for this, and so was Adya!”

“And then what? You get a slap on the wrist because you’re recovering from an injury, and Adya gets a permanent mark on her record? That hardly seems fair.”

“I almost thought you’d forgotten about what happened, considering the way you dragged me down the hall and threw me in here. What’s next, a sparring match? Since you clearly think I’m in peak physical condition.”

Val curls her fingers and plays off her lunge toward him as a pace across the room. A biting, cynical laugh follows. “Watch your fucking step, Anastasio. You’re lucky that all that concrete landed on your shoulder and not your mouth, since you run it so much.”

He goes silent. She doesn’t retrace her words until after it’s too late. Adya lingers by the doorway, fists balled into her pockets. She almost couldn’t get any closer to the wall.

“I’m--”

“No, I get it,” Nate says after a sharp exhale. “I’m not gonna fight you over this, but don’t give me a hard time for something I didn’t ask you to do. I appreciate it, truly, but I don’t need you to do damage control on my decisions.”

Even after all these years, the temptation to lash out follows him like a shadow. Throw a punch, grab a collar, even so much as toss out an insult-- it still takes everything to turn away from it. Fighting with his colleagues isn’t who he is anymore. Especially not in this condition.

“Adya, you’re dismissed for the day,” he orders when he turns to the door.

Val sits up. “What?”

“You’re responsible for her training, but she’s still my cadet. Chain of command doesn’t apply here, Lieutenant.”

“You’ve never been one to hold the chain of command in high regard, like most other agents.”

He braces himself against the doorframe. He offers half a glance over his right shoulder, metal shining against the fluorescent lights of the office. “Good thing I didn’t end up here because I was ‘like most other agents’, then.”