Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Reagan had been acting weird lately.

She stopped jumping down people's throats every time they disagreed, stopped blowing up at every snide jab Myc made about her love life, and seemed like she was actually sleeping. It was a positive change, and much better than her worrying about the current Rand situation 24/7. Nobody wanted to question it and risk Reagan getting worked up again, and as long as she was happy Brett didn't really care what it was. He didn't like to push her about her life, knowing it only pushed her away. She was his BFF and she'd tell him things if she wanted to.

...

Then Brett saw him for the first time.

The gang had been out on a simple mission; go out and intercept some cargo vans headed for the Illuminati headquarters. Someone had gotten wind that the Illuminati had made a breakthrough in psychadelic drug production that would give them a leg up on Cognito, and Rand could not let it slide. Not after the power struggle. 

So, the gang set off into the night in an unmarked truck. It didn't take long to track two vans down, headed towards the state borders- they tailed them for a while, trying not to raise suspicion and scare them off, and when they were close enough on a quiet motorway by the woods Glenn fired a few shots off from the window, popping their tyres. The vehicles pulled over, and everyone but Gigi tentatively stepped out of the truck, weapons raised. They'd need to get away at a moment's notice if something went wrong.

The drivers opened the doors, stepping out of their vehicles slowly. The second they reached for any kind of weapon Glenn would have them knocked out, or worse. (This was the part of the job Brett hated.) They stood quietly, hands raised. Glenn held them at the side of the road while Reagan and Myc questioned  them, asking what kind of drugs they were hauling, if they even knew. There's no point in lying, Reagan said, voice steady. There really wasn't. Regardless of what they got out of them, protocol would always be the same. Interrogate them, get Myc to read their minds to be sure, and erase all memory of the encounter if they were lucky enough to not be worth murdering. 

Andre had been taking inventory of what was in the first van while Brett stood watch, trying to assess what exactly they were looking at. He was ninety-nine percent sure Andre had already snorted some of it, looking off when he stepped outside. "It's like meth... was on meth," he said, frantic. He'd definitely snorted it.

Once the drivers were incapacitated, minds wiped, Andre went to look in the second van- but when he went to open the doors, Brett's stomach sunk for a second. He looked over at Reagan, who was staring straight at the van. She looked worried too. "Andre, did you check if there was anyo-"

Before she could finish, the doors swung open, knocking Andre out cold. Two men jumped out, guns drawn- Brett pulled his own gun, while Glenn ducked behind the front of the first van, taking a shot at one of the men's legs, grazing the side of it. The man turned and ran for cover, barely escaping the shots fired in his direction. Glenn gave chase while the second man turned towards Brett, when he froze.

He had his gun pointed directly at Brett's head, but he wasn't looking at him. He was looking straight at Reagan, almost confused, and she didn't look much better. Neither party moved, and he never pulled the trigger. He narrowed his eyes, arm faltering slightly. "So."

"So!" Brett half-yelled, far too enthusiastically. The man side-eyed him for a moment. He slowly backed away, before bolting into the woods like his partner. Brett ran after him, weaving between the trees as he tried to get a good shot, when he heard another set of footsteps. Reagan was (slowly) following behind- she never bothered to chase someone like this, not on foot.

Realising he was getting lost in his thoughts, Brett picked up the pace- but the man in front of him was too far ahead. He slowed to a halt, turning back to Reagan. "Sorry Reags, I don't think-"

She ran straight past him, breathing heavily.

Why was she still going? Sure, it'd be bad if anyone got away, but one person was small enough for them to call an extraction team and solve the problem with relative ease. He followed her further into the woods, not even sure how far they were from the others anymore. It wasn't hard to keep up with her, and after a while she stopped. She must have realised he was gone. Brett opened his mouth to call out for her, when he heard a voice.

"Are you fucking serious right now, Reagan?" It was deep, gravelly. He stopped running? They're talking? ...He knows her name? Brett hid behind a tree, watching the scene unfold.

"I should be asking you that, Staedtler." Reagan spat. Huh, his name is Staedtler.

"Hey, I'm always on high profile trips like this. We can't have anybody remembering they saw the literal Illuminati at a gas station."

"God, do you always have to be such a dick?"

"You tell me."

Staedtler's tone had a strange lilt to it, and for a second Brett could feel his stomach churning. Seemingly done with this bullshit, Reagan pulled a plasma pistol(?) out from under her lab coat, firing a few shots. Staedtler holstered his own and rolled to the side before making a bee-line for Reagan, slipping on what looked to be a pair of hi-tech gloves and lunging towards her, knocking her off her feet. Her pistol tumbled to the ground, and the second his hands made contact with her skin she jolted and yelped, launching her fist straight into Staedtler's nose. He flinched, groaning, and Reagan managed to roll them over, only to get slammed right on her back again seconds later. The two struggled on the forest floor, and just as Brett moved to help his best friend, they stopped.

Staedtler had pinned Reagan down, his hands by her head, but he didn't make another move. Why wasn't she going for her pistol, that was clearly within arm's reach? They were both heaving, irritated expressions on their faces, and Reagan grumbled something inaudible. Staedtler laughed, and murmured something in return. Brett wanted to move, but Reagan could handle herself, and whatever this was had to be personal. She'd be pissed.

Then he got closer.

Their faces were only a few inches apart now, and Reagan still wasn't moving. 

Brett paused.

He saw something flash across Staedtler's face for a split second, and before he knew what he was doing Brett was pulling his gun and shouting "Reagan!" Staedtler jumped up, startled, and ran for it. It wouldn't be worth it to follow him, and Brett rushed over to Reagan. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Oh God do I needtodofirstaidbecauseIdon'tknow-"

"Jesus Brett, I'm fine." She dusted off her lab coat as he helped her up. "And save the questions for later, did Glenn catch the other guy?"

Brett had completely forgotten about him. "Uhhhh... I think so?"

"Didn't you see him?" 

She didn't know Brett had followed her. "No, I did! I just didn't see the guy with him is all, must have disappeared him already y'know?" He scratched the back of his head. "Why don't we head back and check, I'll call an extraction team for that guy and we can head back to Cognito."

"I'll call the extraction team, don't worry about that. Let's go." Before he could object, Reagan started walking back the way they came.

Brett had a lot of questions, but she clearly wasn't talking about it right now. He'd find out who Staedtler was eventually.

But Brett could swear when he saw Staedtler run away, he looked back.

Chapter Text

A few weeks had passed since the gang's mission sabotaging Illuminati drug vans, and Brett was no closer to finding out anything about Staedtler.

He hadn't thought about it too much, but the few times he had tried bringing it up with Reagan he'd got nothing. She was acting like nothing had happened, probably just embarrassed she hadn't caught Staedtler while she had the chance. But when he checked the records... there was no recent Illuminati-related extraction operations. She'd never called. Now something was off.

Brett half-considered asking Gigi to look into it, dig anything up on Staedtler, but he honestly didn't have a reason to. Getting into trouble with the enemy like that was normal, and sure it was out of character for Reagan to run after someone like that (hell, Brett still carried her sometimes) but there wasn't anything technically wrong with what happened. It was odd the two knew each other, but maybe they'd just run into each other a lot on these missions? Staedtler did say he was always on "high-profile trips". He tried to rationalise it to himself but the more Brett replayed the scene in his mind the more confused he got. He couldn't forget the way the fight had ended, with Staedtler on top of Reagan, getting closer and closer to her face-

"Brett? Can you hear me?"

Brett snapped out of his thoughts with a jolt, looking up to see a confused Reagan. He'd been totally zoned out, and everyone in the conference room was looking at him. Shit. "Yeah- sorry Reags, just dozed off for a second!" He laughed nervously.

"...Right, well as I was saying da- Rand just gave us our missions for the week, if you can even call them that. I'm sorting through them to find what's an actual mission, and what's him having feuds with random celebrities and teenage service industry workers. I was wondering if you could help since you're not busy heading any departments or... whatever the fuck Myc does."

("Hey, boss or not I will tell everyone in this room the most embarrassing person you've ever-!")

"Sure thing Rea-dawg, Brett's always able to lend a hand." He finger gunned as everyone groaned in exasperation.

"You suck, but thank you." Reagan split the pile of papers in half, sliding one portion over to Brett as everyone else left the room. She started flicking the pages, nose wrinkling in disgust at some of the assignments they'd been given. ""Shut down every Denny's in the city?" What the fuck, dad..."

Brett cocked an eyebrow. "Why...?"

"My mom texted me about a hot cashier she met at Denny's last week. Said something about him really being the one this time."

"Oh." Brett cleared his throat, and started sorting through his own stack. He noticed a lot of murders, quietly placing a request to kill every member of Coldplay (why?) in the junk pile, and a few actual assignments about surveillance of the Atlanteans... and the Illuminati. There it was again.

His thoughts wandered again, back to that mission, and he glanced over at Reagan. The bags under her eyes weren't as heavy as they usually were, but still present. She bit the dead skin off her lip absentmindedly as she worked, her own junk pile growing rapidly. 

He quietly finished off sorting the paperwork, not really thinking about it, and saw Reagan had finished hers too. She tossed all the junk papers in the waste paper basket, thanking Brett and turning to leave with the real work. 

"You wanna break for lunch?" Brett asked. He could use a coffee to clear his head. 

"I'm not sure, I have a lot to do right now and I don't feel like getting meth shot at me by a drone for "productivity purposes."" 

"We can get one of those brownies you like?" Reagan paused.

"Okay, maybe we have time."

...

Seated at their usual booth in the cafeteria, Brett sipped on a sickeningly sweet caramel macchiatio, trying to ignore the growing sogginess of his straw. 

"Why are you using that thing again?"

"The barista made a cat with the foam, Reagan. I can't ruin it."

Reagan tch'd affectionately, silently handing Brett a chunk of her brownie as she sipped on her black coffee. He took it gratefully, sweet tooth satisfied for the moment.

"So what's on the agenda for this week? Anything cool?" Brett asked.

"Not really, I have a couple of weird adjustments to make to the security systems and Gigi's supposed to put some subliminal messages about attractive ex-husbands in those trashy yoga hours they play at like, one in the morning."

"And that wasn't junk?"

"I figure if we do one or two of them it'll keep him off our backs. And Gigi is probably just gonna make them make fun of his hairline and tell him she did it."

"Uh-huh." Another sip. His straw was rapidly losing structural integrity.

Reagan finished her brownie, and Brett watched her down the last of her coffee before wiping the corners of her mouth. She still looked tired, but slightly less pissed. He'd gotten good at reading her resting bitch face (and he felt bad calling it that). She rested her face on her palm.

"There's not much for us to do and I guess I should be grateful, but god it's annoying y'know?" She'd cooled down, but was still furious Rand had become CEO.

"Yeah, your dad gives me pretty much nothing."

"Probably still mad over the Bear-O thing." Reagan muttered something like "dickhead" under her breath. Rand had been particularly harsh on Brett in the few weeks between him becoming CEO and Reagan coming back to work, but he figured it was best not to tell her. 

"Yeah, I'm still sorry about that by the way." Brett rubbed the back of his neck.

"You don't have to keep apologising."

"Ah, yeah sorry-" Brett cut himself off.

"Anyway, I'm gonna head down to my lab to start working on this new security tech. Can you hand out everyone's tasks for the week and come back to me at the end of the day to tell me how they're going?"

"Will do, captain!" Brett saluted, face determined. Reagan handed him each person's paperwork and left, throwing her trash in the bin as she left. Brett headed for the cafeteria's exit, and off towards the media manipulation department.

...

When he walked into media manipulation, Brett saw Andre and Gigi talking together by the water cooler, Gigi waving a script around as she spoke. Brett walked over, waving. "Hey guys!"

Gigi and Andre stopped talking, exchanging a look as he approached. "Hey honey, you feelin' better?"

Brett tilted his head. "Better? What do you mean?" Another look.

"Well," Andre started, "you did kind of totally space out this morning. Like, hard." He laughed impishly. Brett didn't realise he'd been lost in thought for so long.

"Sorry about that, but it's all good! I'm feeling Bretter than ever." Gigi and Andre groaned.

"You are really pushin' it with the puns today, huh."

"The grind never stops, Gigi money." Brett said with a smile. "Anyway, we have everyone's tasks for the week, so I'm here on a top priority delivery mission." He handed the two their assignments. 

"Thanks dude, I'll head back to biochem and get started in a few minutes."

"And we're back on in five." Gigi signalled the camera crew to get ready to go back on the air. 

"Coolio, I'm gonna go give Glenn and Myc their work before I swing by the lab." Gigi perked up.

"Tell you what," said Andre, "they're actually on my way so why don't I do it?"

Brett considered it. "Are you sure? Reagan told me to do it, and I don't wanna let her down."

"Brett, Brett, don't worry about it. You go tell Reagan everything's cool up here and we're all getting started on our work." 

"I guess that's okay. Thanks Andre!" 

"No problem dude, see you later!"

Brett left, missing how Gigi scribbled something on her script.

...

Walking into Reagan's lab, Brett called out, "hey Reags, I checked in with the team upstairs and everything's good! How's my girl?"

Said girl was in the middle of her lab, fiddling with some kind of mesh suit. Sparks flew as she toyed with the elbow joints, discarded cups and pill bottles lying at her feet. Where was she even getting all this adderall? She pulled off her mask, turning to Brett.

"I'm fine, just working on a protective bodysuit with a few surprises in it. It should make higher-stakes missions a little less life-threatening. I wanna have it done by Thursday."

"There's a deadline?"

"Sort of. We have a follow up on that drug van thing a couple weeks ago, and after what happened we're not taking our chances like that again." 

Oh, that's why. They'd gotten on just fine after those two guys jumped out of the van, and when Brett and Reagan got back to the truck, Glenn had caught the first gunman pretty quickly, without any injuries. He could see why Reagan wouldn't want to risk anything, but he couldn't help but wonder if it was because she expected to run into Staedtler again. He hoped she didn't.

"Yeah, I guess we got lucky last time, huh." He fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve. "And you're sure you're okay after that?"

"For the last time Brett, I'm fine. I appreciate you checking on me but I just got into a fight on a mission, it happens like every couple weeks. You've been super worked up over this one." Brett didn't realise how much he'd been asking about it.

"You just... looked like you were in a tight spot back there." Reagan tucked away a stray wire. "Maybe next time I could stick with you?"

Reagan faltered for a second. "...Maybe. We'll see what happens."

Brett fist pumped, beaming. "Team Breagan, back together again!" Reagan shook her head, smiling with a tired, "this dumbass" sort of affection.

It had been so long since they'd gotten to really partner up like this, between Reagan's absence and inventing and Brett helping out in the gang's various departments. Hell, Rand barely ever gave them anything to do together. And maybe with the two of them working together, they could catch Staedtler this time, and he wouldn't hurt Reagan like that again- Brett had to make sure of it.

"We won't be able to do this mission if I don't get this suit done. Hand me the soldering iron?"

Friday couldn't come soon enough.

Chapter Text

Brett was excited.

Reagan had finished her new defensive gear the night before, barely escaping another all-nighter, and now the gang was heading back out to follow up on their last outing. Apparently Cognito had gotten wind that the Illuminati knew about the bust, wasn't happy, and was now keeping an even closer eye on them- close enough to send Rand some very interesting letters that he refused to release (or even vaguely describe) the contents of. Whatever they were, he was pissed, and demanded they go back out and find whoever was spying on him.

So here they were again, packed together in a beaten up van heading to the south of D.C, not even sure what they were looking for.

Reagan had some fancy radars set up in the corner, rattling around as the van hit another pothole, that would supposedly pick up on microscopic waves coming from Illuminati tech. ("Those conspiracy nuts aren't totally wrong about 5G," she'd said. "Try not to keep your phone on your bed.") But they'd been driving for damn near two hours now and found nothing, and the gang were getting tired, sitting quietly. Brett could swear they'd passed the same office building three times in the past hour.

The time ticked by, and fatigue turned to irritation.

Myc was the first to snap.

"Reagan, full offense but your dad's a fucking nutcase," he griped. "I'll bet you there is no spy and we just got caught by the IRS. We could tell him we handled it and go back to the office and he wouldn't even know."

Reagan sighed. "Myc, we literally control the IRS. I don't want to be here either but it's this or hearing my dad bitch about it until they stop."

Andre cut in. "Did they send him anthrax or something? I never even released the recipe for that..."

"If only," said Gigi. "I think they have his nudes. There's a lot of them." Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Don't make us think about that, please." Reagan pinched the bridge of her nose, leaning on Brett's shoulder. "It doesn't matter what was in them. I don't want to know what was in them. I want to find this spy, or their outpost, whatever, so we can all go home."

"But-" The gang continued to bicker.

Brett had been quiet so far, not really paying attention. He'd spent a lot of the drive in his own head, daydreaming about anything and everything. But his mind always seemed to circle back to one thing.

He looked down at Reagan as she argued with the others. He knew that logically, the only person who could have let word get back to the Illuminati was Staedtler. He was the only one to escape, to remember who stopped those drug vans, and they'd missed their chance to extract him. But now was their chance to catch him, Brett's chance to catch him! To catch before he could get near-

"Holy shit!" Brett was dragged out of his thoughts by yelling. "We've got a signal, bitches! Glenn, turn left!" Myc sounded like he was about to cry with relief.

Glenn took a hard left, everyone almost falling out of their seats. He just barely caught Reagan, arm wrapping around her waist to pull her back into her seat. Andre hadn't been so lucky, falling head first into Myc, viscous strings of lavender-coloured goo clinging to his face as he pulled away. "Aw fuck."

Brett laughed quietly, silently disgusted, and looked back at Reagan. She pushed her hair back away from her eyes and adjusted her sweater before looking up to (try to) meet Brett's eyes. She looked slightly... nervous?

"Sorry for falling on you like that, thanks for catching me though. I don't really want a broken arm before we even find this guy.". Ah, right. That was a lot of contact for her.

"Don't worry about it, I got you dawg!" He gave her his best smile, and didn't miss the way she scoffed affectionately, eyes lowered.

"Take this next right!"

"I know where I'm going," Glenn grumbled.

"...You can't see the radar, Glenn."

"Are you questioning me, soldier?"

"Sure." Was Myc trying to rile him up? "Wait shit- it's moving!"

Reagan snapped up. "Where are they headed?" Myc scratched his sort of head. 

"I think it's moving towards us." There was a beat of silence. Then in a mad scramble everyone was reaching for their weapons, not ready to be caught with their guard down like last time. "Pull into that alley!" 

Glenn swerved into the alleyway next to them, van rolling to a halt. Suddenly it was quiet again save for the sound of bated breaths and the quiet beep beep beep-ing of the radar next to them, as the little green dot drew closer, and closer, and closer. Brett could feel the way Reagan tensed up as the dot moved faster, and it was only then he realised he hadn't let her go.

Soon enough the dot was almost at the dead-centre of the screen, and everyone's heads turned towards the back doors. Gigi stood up, pulling her tranquiliser gun and pointing it straight forward, ready to fire the second they opened. But they didn't.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. There was no noise outside. The dot didn't move, there was no shots, nothing. Gigi carefully cracked the door ajar, and kicked it open with her heel.

Outside, on the ground, lay a phone with a cracked screen.

"Shit."

Reagan rose from her seat, pulling away from Brett. He watched her step outside, cautious, and pull out some sort of device, holding it a few feet from the phone. Afterwards, she picked it up, examining it. "That bitch..." 

Brett cocked his head to the side. "What's wrong?"

Reagan turned back towards the gang. "The fucker caught on. Tried breaking his phone and left it so we couldn't..." She looked up, eyes widening. "Find him. Fuck."

With no further explanation she took off running, out of the alleyway and off to the left. Alarms were going off in Brett's head, and in an instant he was leaping out of the van, tearing down the street after her as the others watched in pure confusion. He could faintly hear the clicking of heels and crocs respectively but was too far gone to care. They were going to stick together this time.

He caught up to Reagan quickly, yelling for her. "Reagan, wait!" She turned her head to look at him, expression unreadable. She was heaving, already out of breath. Brett couldn't see anything ahead of them, and just when he was afraid they'd lost him he looked up to see none other than Staedtler running along the rooftops. There was no way they were going to get him like this, and Brett half considered just picking Reagan up and climbing (he quickly realised how much that was not going to work) but it seemed as if luck was on their side this time, as they drew closer to the end of the block of buildings. Staedtler would have nowhere to go.

Staedtler must have realised too, running to other side of the building he was on. Brett and Reagan followed, turning down another alleyway, and just as they reached the back of the building they saw Staedtler hop down off of the fire escape stairway. Brett stood slightly ahead of Reagan, and Staedtler looked like a deer in headlights when he saw them. Reagan had her gun drawn before he could even begin to reach for his own. But then when he met her eyes his expression shifted to something more relaxed, almost arrogant. Brett didn't like it. 

"Back so soon?"

Reagan didn't react. "I could ask you the same thing."

Staedtler laughed that same low, annoying laugh. "I didn't rat you out, you know."

What? "But you were the only one who got away!" Brett said. Staedtler looked at him, studying him for a second, but something was off. 

"Well I didn't do it. The Illuminati's always spying on you dumbasses anyway."

"Then could you stop for long enough to get my d- our boss off my fucking back?" Staedtler turned his attention back to Reagan, and there it was again. 

That annoying something that was making Brett feel like he was intruding on his own job. He was getting tired of it already.

"I'd love to, but my boss is going to just as annoying if I don't. You see our problem here?"

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Reagan still had her gun pointed directly at Staedtler's chest, and he had his arms raised in front, no weapons. Brett kept searching his face, looking for any signs that he might have something up his sleeve, but none came.

Then, slowly, almost agonisingly so, he gave Reagan a once over, eyes still full of pure disdain, but for a fraction of a second Brett saw something flash across his face again just like he had in the woods. Brett felt the urge to move, to do something. Staedtler seemed to hesitate, glancing at him, before speaking.

"Maybe we can come to an agreement." 

Reagan held her gun tighter, finger twitching. "What kind of agreement?" 

"You give me dirt on Cognito's CEO, I give you dirt on the Illuminati's. We both have just enough to get our bosses to shut up and stop spying on each other-"

"You are spying on us-"

"And stop bugging us. Deal?"

In theory, it could work, but Brett wasn't satisfied. There were no deals on these missions, and they had no real reason to let Staedtler go just so he could continue to be a thorn in Cognito's side.

"Deal. Dick."

What. Brett looked at Reagan, incredulous. 

"Ouch, okay. I try to be civil with you for once and you call me a dick? Kind of expected for you, but really. Not okay."

Reagan groaned. "I thought that was more your thing, but cool. I'll get everything on a USB and we can exchange them later." Staedtler grinned, victorious. "And by the way, if you try screwing me on this, I have your phone. Next time you try breaking it, do more than crack the screen."

Staedtler's face fell. "Don't worry, you have my word."

"And what's that worth?"

He scowled, looking off to the side. Reagan finally lowered her gun, not holstering it quite yet. Brett tentatively lowered his own gun, not trusting Staedtler to not pull something- but to Brett's surprise, he didn't. 

"C'mon," Reagan gestured for Brett to follow her back out to the street, "we can finish up with the others." He slowly walked alongside her, keeping her close. He cast one last look at Staedtler over his shoulder, and this time he was certain that Staedtler was looking right at Reagan. The thought made him feel uneasy, and he stepped closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. Just for now.

He'd think about it later. Right now Brett just wanted to get them both away from him.

...

That night, Brett hadn't slept well.

Everything went smoothly when they got back to the gang, Reagan quickly lying that they'd left the anonymous Illuminati spy lying memory erased in a Wendy's dumpster. They drove back to Cognito, just glad to be done with the whole ordeal, and Reagan let Rand know their spy problem had, for now, been resolved. But Brett had witnessed the whole real interaction and not only was it bizarre, Reagan- again- wasn't talking about it.

He'd gotten a, "damn, guess I didn't even need the new suit!" from her on the walk back, and some bitching about all the sleep she could've had (that she definitely wouldn't have taken, anyway) but other than that it was almost like she wasn't acknowledging it at all. And he supposed she didn't have a reason to this time, no injuries, no fight. Brett had witnessed all of it and she was fine. But it was driving him up the wall, because somehow he had even more questions than last time. He turned them over in his mind again and again trying to decipher what had just happened.

This time he'd heard the whole conversation, and gotten to see Staedtler up close. He saw shadowy stubble covering his cheeks and jaw, thick eyebrows and unkempt hair (did he use any product at all?) and most importantly, he saw how he looked at Reagan. It was all anger, distaste. But then there was that elusive flash of something, and it was becoming a distraction because Brett couldn't figure it out. 

"Back so soon?"

Then there was his voice. Sharp and low, as he and Reagan bickered, slinging names at each other like they didn't both have actual guns on them. He spat words out with venom, mocking her. Trying to get a rise out of her.

Why had Reagan let him go again? She could have easily shot him then and there and been done with it. And how was she going to find him to trade info on Rand and the Illuminati's CEO? She wasn't seriously going to do that, and not alone. And why was Staedtler so...

He was going in circles now. His alarm clock read 3.26am. Reagan was probably awake by now. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much trouble sleeping, and the worst part was he didn't even know why it was happening. Sure this whole Staedtler thing had gotten weirder, but Reagan always had her reasons. 

Getting out bed with a sigh, Brett went to his closet to pull out some shorts and a shirt. A run to clear his mind couldn't hurt. Then he'd stop thinking about it.