Chapter Text
“Grab that and you’re good to go here,” Chris’s smooth voice said in Jun’s ear as he reached for the USB he’d just finished transferring the files they were here for too.
“Are we clear in the hallway?” Tetsuya asked from where he had one shoulder pressed against the door frame on the other side of the room, his sidearm in his hand.
“Nothing on the camera, and the guards at the entrance are still out cold,” Chris said.
Jun dropped the USB into his pocket. “That’s ‘cause I do my job right the first time.”
Even in the dim light, Jun could tell Tetsuya was rolling his eyes at him. Whatever, Jun knew full well Tetsuya appreciated Jun’s hand-to-hand skills. As he took three strides to cross the room, Jun pulled out his own weapon. With practiced ease, Jun fell into position on the other side of the door from Tetsuya. Tetsuya raised one eyebrow in question and Jun gave a sharp nod in response. They’d worked together for years, speaking on a routine mission like this one was barely needed. Especially not with gorgeous voiced Chris, their trusted handler, guiding them from HQ.
Tetsuya eased the door open and stepped out, gun first, into the hallway. Jun followed hot on his heels, head on a swivel. A lazy agent was a dead agent.
“Stairs on your right in fifteen feet,” Chris rumbled.
Tetsuya just nodded as he continued to creep down the hallway in front of Jun. Chris no doubt saw the nonverbal reply through the microcamera in Jun’s eyeglasses. Identical to the pair Tetsuya wore, standard issue from the agency. The camera was partially to record missions and partially to give the HQ stationed handlers the full picture of what they were guiding their assigned agents through.
They met no resistance as they approached the stairs. The rest of their exit proceeded much the same, Chris giving them brief directions where necessary and the two of them making their way back out of the nondescript London office building without any resistance. Jun almost wanted to complain about how smooth and boring this mission had gone, but karma had smacked him for that one before.
“Good work,” Chris told them as they slid into the agency luxury sedan. “Signing off now. Don’t miss your flight.” There was a playful quality in Chris’s usually very professional voice.
“That was once!” Jun shouted.
The only response was the beep of Chris’s comm line disconnecting. Jun grumbled wordlessly as he settled into the passenger seat. As Tetsuya brought the vehicle to life, Jun flicked his own earbud into the cupholder to join Tetsuya’s. He tapped the side of his glasses to turn the camera off and noted that Tetsuya did the same before he put the car in drive.
“It was your fault we missed that flight anyway,” Tetsuya said as he turned out of the side street they had stashed the car on.
Jun gave him a sideways glance. “I’m going to choose to blame you. Who just wakes up looking as sexy as you do every morning? It would take a stronger man than me to resist that.”
Tetsuya’s only response was to roll his eyes, which Jun took as a victory. They’d been partners in more than one sense of the word for years, Jun knew when he’d won. Besides, Tetsuya hadn’t exactly been complaining until after he’d realized how late they were.
They wove through the empty streets of London in silence for a few minutes before Jun couldn’t help but break it. “Do you think it’s a requirement for handlers to have sexy voices?”
That got an audible groan from Tetsuya. “You know what our other handlers have sounded like.”
“So you’re admitting Chris has a sexy voice?” Jun smirked even though Tetsuya couldn’t really see.
Tetsuya sighed, hands flexing against the steering wheel. “I thought we had put this conversation to bed.”
Tetsuya wasn’t exactly wrong, they had talked themselves in circles about Chris time and time again. The handler held an allure for the two of them that no one they had ever met before had. Not that they had strictly speaking ever met Chris before. Agency protocol, handlers and agents were kept away from each other to make the tough decisions easier should they ever be needed. That was the theory anyway. There were always stories making their way through the grapevine about how that wasn’t quite how it worked in practice.
Now it was Jun’s turn to sigh. “I know but then I spend a whole mission listening to him and I can’t help but think about the what ifs.”
“What we’re already doing is dangerous enough,” Tetsuya countered.
Jun slumped a little more in his seat, the seatbelt biting into his neck. Tetsuya wasn’t wrong. Strictly speaking, agents and staff weren’t supposed to engage in romantic or sexual interagency relationships. Though it was more one of those ‘don’s ask, don’t tell’ arrangements these days. Jun had reason to suspect he and Tetsuya weren’t the only agents keeping a relationship on the down low. Still it was risky. If they were publicly discovered, the Agency would have no course but to dishonorably discharge both of them.
When Jun didn’t say anything for a long moment, Tetsuya admitted in a near whisper, “His voice is attractive though.”
It wasn’t just his voice though, and Jun knew that Tetsuya agreed. There had been more than one tipsy conversation listing off Chris’s good points. The handler was quick witted, intelligent, funny when he wanted to be, and almost too kind for their world. It was enough to make Jun want to risk his career for a second time.
***
“Good work,” Chris said as he watched the two of them hop into the agency sedan. “Signing off now. Don’t miss your flight.”
“That was once!” Was Jun’s predictably loud response.
Chris disconnected his comm line, chuckling to himself as the computer screen in front of him changed to display the map of their car setting off into the streets of London. There were a pair of soft beeps as their camera feeds went offline, followed by a notification that the comm lines had been closed on their end as well.
“So,” Ryousuke drawled in a faux sweet voice from the desk next to. “How are your boys?”
“Their mission went as expected,” Chris answered flatly. “And don’t call them that.”
“Why?” Ryousuke teased, grinning at Chris in that way that promised mischief. “Hit too close home?”
“You know agency policy as well as I do,” Chris countered, sidestepping what Ryousuke was implying.
Ryousuke had dragged that out of him earlier this year with multiple bottles of sake. He wasn’t about to say it out loud again sober and sitting in the middle of HQ. He was a hopeless romantic not an idiot. Though allowing Ryousuke to get him to admit his crush on the two agents he was responsible for in the field, might make him just a little bit stupid. But in his defense, the man had been in the interrogation division before he’d been forced into the handler department by an injury. So Chris was going to cut himself a little slack there.
“I also know that the brass doesn’t look twice at personnel who get their job done correctly and don’t cause problems with messy drama,” Ryousuke countered without hesitating. “They’re some of the best of the business, and all three of you have your heads on straight, none of you would let it jeopardize a mission.”
“They don’t even know me,” Chris responded. “Not the way I know them. It’s not worth risking anything over a maybe.”
“Life’s worth a little risk,” Ryou retorted. “Isn’t that why we’re all in this insane business?”
Chris rolled his bad shoulder at the implication of Ryou’s words. A souvenir from a previous chapter in his life that still flared up when it rained and when the memories were bad enough.
“Risk isn’t all it’s chalked up to be.” Chris said as he stood up from his desk. Tetsuya and Jun could make it back to the safehouse without him. “I’m running to the canteen, you need anything?”
Ryou shook his head. “I’m good. Thanks.”
Chris tried to clear his head as he shuffled out of the Situation Room and through the bustling hallways of HQ. About six months into being assigned to Tetsuya and Jun, Chris knew he needed to ask for a transfer. He’d become far too attached to them, far more than was acceptable for a handler. There was something about them. Tetsuya’s calm and competent demeanor. Jun’s brash and brute forced approach. On the surface they should have been too opposite to work well together, and yet they handled even the most complex situations with ease. They filled each other’s gaps in perfect ways. There was something about them that made Chris want to know them outside of work. A weak part of himself that he catered to everyday he didn’t put in a transfer request.
But he wasn’t so weak as to think he had a chance with them. All they knew him as was the voice in their ear with their next set of instructions. He was barely more than a colleague to them. And they- well they were certainly more than colleagues to each other. It had only taken Chris about four months to work that out. The way they spoke, the way they touched, it was all too familiar, even for a pair of agents who put their lives in each other’s hands day after day.
So no, Chris wasn’t going to let himself believe he had a chance or that there was any reason to say anything to them. He was just going to keep doing his job and guiding them as safely through missions as was possible. That was just going to have to be enough for him.