“FuckfuckFUCK-”

Amber eyes snapping open, Ash stared at the dark ceiling, his chest heaving. Running a hand over his face, he groaned. His face was wet. He hated when his face was wet, because it meant he’d been crying, and he hated when he cried. Rolling over, he pulled his pillow over his head, digging his fingers into the soft material and letting out a frustrated growl.

He despised it.

Any time he returned home from a long assignment, horrifying nightmares would destroy what little sleep he got. While usually related to whatever new hell he’d just dealt with, the worst ones involved watching his father being gunned down in their own home. Even knowing he’d survived, it never failed to leave him feeling drained and wrung out. Reminded so keenly of the gunshots from barely a week ago, the screams of the agent assisting him echoing ominously in his ears, Ash pulled the pillow tighter against his face and squeezed his eyes shut.

Three bullets, three lives taken, and all he’d gained from it was another week of nightmares and an argument with his lieutenant. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to sit up. He picked up the stuffed panther from his bedside table to run a thumb over the worn button eyes and rough sewn-and-resewn ears. Doing it until the rush of his pulse no longer encroached on the silence, he bowed his head. It comforted him; he didn’t know how it survived his childhood, but it did, and having it there to nuzzle against was a desperately needed anchor through the worst of the terror.

His phone rang. He groaned, snapping it up and plopping back against his pillows to give the screen a sullen stare. HQ showed on the screen; swiping down on it, Ash’s brow scrunched with the realization that he’d missed multiple calls from the agency. What the fuck do they want? He threw it down beside him to return to prodding at the plush toy. He’d already gone on leave, taking the tiny bit of peace he could get before he had to throw himself back into the fray; whatever they wanted, it certainly wouldn’t be anything he’d like.

Ash nudged the face of the toy with his nose, rolling his eyes when his ring tone went off again. Swearing under his breath, annoyed, he answered with a muttered, “Hello?”

“Good morning, Shadowfire-san! Do you have a moment?” The familiar, high-pitched voice of his boss’ secretary greeted him, making him shake his head. If Ono was calling, it could only be because Isao needed him. If Isao needed him, it could only mean they were cutting his leave short, and the idea made him want to slam his head into a wall.

Ash made a confused sound. It was a strange thing, hearing someone call him by his code name. After six months of using an alias, even his own name had started sounding foreign. Considering her question, he turned his eyes toward the suitcase sitting unopened by the bedroom door. No, he thought. “Yes,” he said instead, tracing one of the many stitched up tears in the plush’s cloth body with a finger.

“Great! Commander Cipher asked me to call. He needs you to come in for a meeting….”

As she jabbered on about said commander requesting his presence, something about a change needing to be made to his leave, Ash swore under his breath when the panther plush slipped out of his hands to land on his face with a flump. He’d known that’s what she’d say, and it took what little energy he had to resist asking her to tell their lead commander to pound sand.

Not that he’d ever say that to Isao, regardless of how tempting it was.

Fucking hell, Isao, he thought, pinching the bridge of his nose. Brushing the plush off, letting it fall under his arm, Ash closed his eyes. I’m supposed to be on vacation. He wasn’t planning anything major for it; he’d likely stay home playing video games and drinking far more soda than he really needed to until he became bored enough to beg for a new mission well before his scheduled return. That wasn’t the point, though. He raked his fingers through his hair as he let out a drawn-out sigh. Guess it’s better than reliving last week again. “Tell him I’m on my way,” he groaned.

Once the call ended, Ash grabbed the plush to glower at it. I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet, and I need a nap already. Fuck.

It was over an hour later when he walked through the heavy glass front doors of Kuroi Ki’s main building and into the pleasant hum of the rookie agents clustered around a nearby table. Ash gave them a vague, half-hearted smile as they cheerfully waved at him, keeping his steps brisk as he walked through the lobby. He entered the elevator and tapped his badge against the reader, grateful the cabin was empty as the machine whirled into life.

“Shadowfire-san!” Ono’s delighted voice called once he’d stepped out on the administrative floor and found his way around to Isao’s office door. Ash startled, eyes going wide. Looking down at the young secretary as he stepped up to her desk, her beaming smile lighting up her pretty face, he tilted his head. “You made it! You doing any better?”

“Ah, hello Ono-san… a little bit.” He blinked. She always showed more energy than he had, a point he was highly envious of as it highlighted the gloominess that seemed to sit heavily over his shoulders when he returned home. Pink settled in around her cheeks, a pleased smile curving her mouth; he was certain she had a crush on him, her face brightening up any time she saw him, and it flustered him every time he thought about it. “How’ve you been? Cipher wasn’t being mean to you while I was gone, was he?” 

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re here! Cipher-san’s been…” She paused. Furtively looking toward the door, she turned her dark eyes back to him.

“Go on.” Ash couldn’t resist a chance of messing with Isao.

“He’s been… well, he’s been dealing with some difficult clients today.” Turning her monitor around, she motioned hopelessly at the schedule.

Ash laughed. “So, he’s cranky again?” Bending at the waist, he leaned against the top of her desk and gave her a mischievous look. “Should I pass along the message that he needs to cool his jets?”

“Oh, no!” She covered her mouth, shaking her head with wide eyes. “Please, don’t! He’ll know we’ve been talking about him! Please, Shadowfire-san, you’ll get me in trouble!”

He snickered. Being able to tease her—and sometimes, getting a tiny bit back if she ever felt bold enough to do so—was half the fun of spending time in the office. “Alright. Your secret is safe with me.” As she relaxed, he looked toward the closed door. “Is he in his office? I’ll be mad if he called me down here just in time to wait on him.”

“Yes, of course!” She picked up the phone, twisting a few strands of hair around her finger. “Commander, Agent Shadowfire is here to see you.”

There was a pause, then a nervous laugh. Ash rolled his eyes. He could guess what Isao likely asked when she said, “No, no, he’s been fine,” while glancing up at him with a nervous smile.

Before she could put the phone down, the door opened, and the older man’s face appeared in the crack.

“It’s about time you made it,” Isao grumbled. Ash’s vague smile turned into a toothy grin as he circled around the side of the desk to approach him. “Get in here. We need to talk.”

Ash’s grin disappeared as they stared at each other solemnly. “I didn’t do it,” he interjected, closing the door behind him once the elder let him step into the office. 

“Oh?” A scowl creased Isao’s face. “And the car I had to sign off on the financials for? You telling me a ghost did it?”

Ash cringed. Only a few months back, he’d rear-ended one of his suspects while still undercover in Kochi. It’d happened after the department decided he could go on patrol alone, but before he could get the detective he was investigating to trust him, and the drama it caused had been immense. He thought he’d been slick by conveniently not bringing it up when he reported in to either his lieutenant or commander.

He’d been mistaken. He swore his head still hurt when he thought about the scolding Hawk gave him a few weeks after the fact. “It’s not my fault that they stopped in front of me and I didn’t.” Clearing his throat, Ash sank down into the chair sitting in front of the well-worn desk. He crossed his legs and straightened up as Isao sighed. “So, what’d you need?”

Isao’s forehead wrinkled in concentration, his hands flipping through the paperwork in front of him. His eyes darted across the stack of files, lingering momentarily on one. Sneaking a peek at the name—Rappel—Ash glanced back up. “How is she?” he asked, “Did she… is she doing ok?”

After narrowly saving the younger agent from almost certain death in the warehouse, both of them caught in an ambush, the other agents had swept her away for treatment of the gunshot wounds she’d suffered. In the hustle of making his final reports of the mission, he hadn’t gotten a chance to ask after her. It didn’t seem fair that her first mission away from her mentor had ended with her being critically injured. He winced, thinking about how he’d experienced receiving a similarly near-lethal injury during his first solo mission, and brushed the thought aside.

“Better. She’s already out of the hospital and on leave,” Isao murmured. Flipping the pages of a folder, he paused. It looked sparse, containing only a fraction of the papers that the others did. Making a face, heavy brows scrunching with annoyance, Isao huffed. “I have an assignment for you. I’m not particularly keen to give it to you, and I doubt you’ll be happy taking it, either.”

“Why? What’s the deal with it?” Vowing to visit Rappel to check on her, Ash took the offered file. Popping it open to flick through the contents, finding lengthy profiles on a local nuclear family and one of the shortest missions descriptions he’d ever seen, his head snapped up. His eyes narrowed. “You can’t be serious. Isao, this is rookie shit.”

“I know.” Isao rubbed his temples, elbows planted on the desk. He closed his eyes and sighed, looking every year of his age with the tension that deepened the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. After a beat of silence, he grunted. “This is the type of job I’d have given you when you first started, but my hands are tied. You have to take it.”

Ash raked his fingers through his hair, groaning. He didn’t necessarily mind getting a straightforward assignment after such a long and difficult one, though he couldn’t help the impatience seeping in with the loss of his direly needed leave. The mission folder sitting in his hands, however, felt almost insulting. “There’s at least ten other people that are more appropriate for this. I can’t babysit a teenage girl!”