Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Damn it all, where WAS that book?? Nyx had looked all over her apartment for the heavy volume—Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde—but couldn’t for the life of her find it. Great, and it was one of her favorites, too.

“Bon sang,” she cursed under her breath. “Fils de pute.”

Two minutes later, she found it sitting on top of the washing machine.

“Mon Dieu, je ne me souviens même pas où est mon foutu livre!”

Nyx perched on the couch, flipped the book open to a marked page, and took out of a compartment in the pages a tiny vial filled with a watery green liquid. She lightly shook it, causing the liquid to bubble. Perfect. She pulled out her phone and tapped a few buttons.

“Mr. Armand? Yes, it’s me. I have your object of interest at the ready.” Pause. “Yes, of course I know him. Mmhmm. Payment’ll be figured out after the job is done. No, I don’t accept traveler’s checks, sorry. I’ll call you when I’m finished. You too, goodbye.”

Nyx lazily twirled the small vial between her fingertips. “You’re gonna make me a lot of money, chéri.”

Chapter Text

What should she wear for the exciting new endeavor? Nyx had two outfits laid out on her bed, waiting to be picked. The first one: Reeboks, black cargo pants with more pockets than the average wallet, deep blue cropped hoodie with the original Star Wars movie poster graphic, dark necklace (the pendant quoting Edgar Allan Poe), and a simple claw clip-scrunchie ‘do. The second: another pair of sneakers (Jordans), black netted exercise leggings, a cropped hoodie, this time quoting a rap song, a Goth choker decorated with black and blue-tinged feathers, and the same claw clip.

“What should I choose, Shadow?” she asked her midnight-colored cat as the latter pounced on the flashy jewelry. “Apbapba, no playing with my chokers, you know how they get tangled around you. Somehow. I don’t understand how you even do it, Doe.” The cat looked at Nyx reproachfully with her dark blue eyes. Nyx smiled and scooped up the mewling feline, affectionately kissing her head.

“I have to go to work, so be a good girl and don’t wreck the fridge like last time I left you home alone. I simply can’t bring you with, darling, I got strict orders not to.”

She let Shadow down and she scurried away under the bed. Cats.

“And don’t let me come home to another cat, as well. We both know how that turned out.” An offended meow from under the bed. Nyx eventually decided on the first outfit, as she would probably blend in a lot better, and that was what she needed to be today. Invisible. Like a ghost.

She quickly dressed, brushed her teeth, and left Shadow a bit of breakfast in the petite dish on the kitchen floor. “Bye, Doe,” she called into the apartment, and heard a soft meow while closing the front door behind her. Checking one of her numerous pants pockets, she made sure the vial was safely tucked into a corner of the fabric chamber, not to be disturbed or discovered by any human being other than Nyx.

The car radio automatically tuned to an R&B/Soul station as she got in the sleek black Cadillac. Her prestigious job had many benefits, both financially and otherwise, enabling Nyx to keep a healthy number of luxuries around. She turned onto a suburban street, mentally calculating how many clients she had on that road and which targets she had eliminated. All of them, of course; no one slipped past Nyx Hemlock once she locked onto their location.

Humming along to the radio, she drove casually past houses, condos, apartment buildings, offices, and the occasional park; all perks to living in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she was used to it. The hubbub of the busy city was not Nyx’s favorite thing in the world, but it suited certain aspects of her life, often coming in handy if she needed to escape into a crowd on short notice. All in a day’s work.

She finally reached her destination and parked the car. The radio tried to play an ad promoting diapers, but Nyx wasn’t in the mood; she flicked the switch and it immediately died.

Her sneakers were a good choice of footwear, as they made next to no sound on the concrete floor of the parking garage. The former blonde was good at that sort of thing, having wanted to become a spy when she was younger, and so researched every bit relating to the subject, from gadgets to gizmos, formal attire to finicky getaways—you name it.

The guard blocking the entrance to the building balked at Nyx’s sudden appearance but was calmed by the production of an ID and an assurance that she was just there to watch the practice. Both fake, obviously. But he didn’t have to know that. She entered Paycor Stadium with an air of supremacy and confidence and began casually making her way towards the part of the field where the players were practicing. Usually they trained in a camp close to the stadium, but as the season neared the team would decide to practice there so as to get their team members ready to go for the first match and so on. Oh, Nyx understood football, more than possibly the Commissioner of the NFL himself, Mr Roger Goody-Two-Shoes; she couldn’t stand him.

Trailing a long finger across the railing of the fourth floor seating, she slowly winded down to the third, then the second, and finally the first, where she headed out to the field itself, flashing the ID at the guard overseeing the players. All she had to do was get a hold of a certain one’s water bottle and be careful no one else drank from it otherwise, boom, her cover and career blown. But she wasn’t worried. After all, when had she ever messed up?

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a Gatorade stand filled with bottles. Precisely what she required. She hung around for a while, artfully concealed, observing the guys spraying a cool drink over their mouths and oftentimes bodies. Overheat.

About an hour after Nyx had gotten there, she gained an idea of how the team’s system worked: a few people at a time would go over to the stand and get themselves some water or other sports drink, but there was no order to which bottle was used; players would grab the closest one and start guzzling. Interesting.

This would not do. Time for Plan B. 

Nyx backtracked and headed for the locker room; there were plenty of supplies and disguises fit for her to make a selection from. The guard there, once more, proved useless, as she was able to wave her faux ID in his face like a hypnotizing pendant on a chain.That little plastic card was turning out to be one of the best purchases Nyx had made that year.

Talking to the guard (whose name she found was Ernest), she figured that none of the players or coaches were inside the room, there was a bag of water bottles left on one of the benches, and hats and other things were in the broom closet. Funny place to keep that sort of thing, but Nyx wasn’t complaining. She waved a cheery goodbye to the guard and strolled right into the locker room.

“Right, where’d he say.........?”

Aha. The broom closet was to the left, and the bag of supplies was perched on top of the second bench to the right. It was almost too easy. She shouldered the bag and poked her head into the closet—quite a bit of dust, for one thing—then came brooms (obviously), extra gear, a mop, buckets, and finally visors and suitable equipment to disguise herself. The visor was perfect, but Nyx didn’t think she needed anything else for the job; watergirls don’t require much to hand out towels and Gatorade.

Time for Chéri.

She pulled the tiny vial from her pocket, uncorked it, careful not to breathe in, twisted one of the water bottle caps open, poured the contents of the vial down the neck of it, and quickly popped the cover of both containers back on. The vial went back to her pants pocket.

Placing the visor smartly on her head and simultaneously closing the closet door, she peeked around the corner. Coast clear. Right, now to get out without the guard becoming suspicious.

“Thanks for letting me in, Ernest,” she said, tipping her stolen hat at him. “Staff needed another girl to hand out stuff. Said the team wanted more breaks.”

“Oh, no problem,” said the gullible, rather round in the middle guard. “Let me know if I can do anything else for ya, dear.”

“Will do. See you ‘round.”

Well. That was simple. The problem with society is that nobody actually hires capable people to watch over their valuables anymore. Made it fairly easy for Nyx to steal them, of course, but she liked a good challenge, and these Pilsbury spokesmen did not put one up for her. As if any other could, but that was beside the point.

The practicing players came within sight of Nyx shortly; she observed one of them with jersey number 9 throwing a football to a wide receiver: Bingo. She had one hand on the tainted water bottle and the other waiting to grab a razor-sharp knife stashed in her back pocket if need be.

“Hi,” she greeted the target, seizing the golden opportunity when he paused to take a breather. “I’m stepping in for today, and I noticed you probably needed a drink—“

He turned to face Nyx, and her heart immediately halted in the process of beating.

The young man was smiling, revealing perfectly lined-up teeth: veneers, no doubt about that. His eyes were the palest blue Nyx had ever seen on a person, and they twinkled. Or was that her imagination? Dirty-blond locks curled softly over his forehead, almost touching his long eyelashes, and—Lord help her—his biceps were flexing; she felt dizzy.

“You got that right,” he chuckled, tossing a football up and down as he spoke. Nyx couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. Somehow her voice seemed to be missing, and her limbs were inarticulate as of that moment. Bon Dieu, what was WRONG with her?

Her left hand abruptly gained movement, snatched, without her permission, a different, poison-less water bottle, and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a long swig, then gave it back to Nyx.

“You’re welcome.” She swiveled and started walking back to the tunnel where the exit was, angrier at herself than she had ever been. What kind of killer was she? One that doesn’t come through for her clients, that’s what. She could almost hit herself for being so utterly stupid. Actually, scratch that; she could TOTALLY hit herself for being so utterly stupid. Elle était TELLEMENT idiote. It didn’t matter that he was too attractive for his own good, with those mesmerizing eyes, and that really cute curly hair—Oh, this was not good.

Putain.

Chapter Text

Nyx pummeled the punching bag with the furiosity of a tiger, horrified by her apparent amorous feelings towards the attractive player she was assigned to kill. And that phone call with Mr. Armand had NOT gone well at all.

“Well,” Nyx had tried to explain, “I’m deeply sorry, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to find another tactical poisoner to carry out your tasks. No, it’s nothing personal, I am just unable to undertake it. I know I agreed to it. You don’t have to pay me full, yes, I’m fine with that, but I did create that poison uniquely myself, and I do require a small portion of my former pay. Ten percent. I’m afraid I don’t have time to listen to this; pay up or face my reputable lawyer in court. Thank you kindly, Mr. Armand.”

Bottom line: she received her part, even if the payer was distraught over the affair, and Nyx was left with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with you-know-what. She wasn’t allowing herself to think about it, much less draw a conclusion as to why it had happened, and so she resigned herself to punching the hell out of inanimate objects. For fun, of course.

A bit later, she let her body rest and took a water break. Her mind, while thinking of other things, slowly drifted to the thought that she might have a crush—NO, she did NOT. It was all in her head. Exceptional murderers like Nyx didn’t catch feelings for someone randomly, if they did at all, and she was not going to let him burrow his way into her everyday thoughts. Those were reserved for poison ideas and song lyrics and—

Cat food—she had totally forgotten to feed Shadow.

She steadied the punching bag so she could slip past it and out of the downstairs gym to the apartment, calling, “Doe, darling! Where’d you get off to?”

A delighted purr greeted her as Shadow strutted into the living room, probably back from either vehemently hunting a mouse or flat-out snoring (and yes, the bloody cat snored) beneath Nyx’s bed. She stretched out on the carpet, waiting for Nyx to notice her and snatch her up.

“Well, dear,” Nyx said thoughtfully with the blue-grey feline in her arms. “How about a late lunch, hmm? I apologize for forgetting, but you know how I get when I’m upset. Stupid deal, stupid Mr. Armand, stupid—well, whatever that man’s name is that I, er, met.”

Shadow gazed at her with those huge, wondering eyes cats have that seem to stare into your soul, as if having a conversation with your pet was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Nyx loved having a little animal de compagnie around for good luck and simply as a tiny, non-English-speaking friend, and Shadow got the better half of the deal with on-time meals and all-day naps.

“I don’t suppose you have a certain someone you like more than other cats?” she asked Shadow teasingly. The cat just looked back at her, possibly thinking her owner was a nutjob. “I’ll have to ask Teva about that. For me, I mean. If she’s even in town—oh, she actually might be in Chicago, come to think of it. I’ll call her, then. She’s an expert (at least she tells me so) on the subject of liking someone and crushes. Maybe she can tell me how to stop it. But yes, yes, first you need food.” Shadow was squirming in her arms, a sure sign she had had her fill of cuddles. Nyx swiftly scooped a spoon for Shadow’s cat food in a tub near her and doled it into her food dish. “There you go.”

Shadow mewed contentedly as she dove for the bowl, waving a paw as if to tell Nyx to back off; it was feeding time. Her owner crouched down next to her and began stroking her blue-black metallic fur.

“Why can’t I get him out of my head?” she said softly to no one in particular. “Suddenly all I want to think and talk about is him, and I don’t even know his name. Why does my heart drop whenever I think about him? I only met him yesterday; shit like this just doesn’t happen to me. Why does—why does any of this happen, quite frankly?” She sighed and fully sat down on the hard, cold tiles.

Shadow had no answer for her, as she was busy licking the sides of the dish clean, unwilling to let any go to waste. Nyx looked on scornfully. “At least you don’t have to work yourself up with things like this for no reason. You don’t have to—why am I talking about my problems with a cat.” Shadow made a small noise that sounded suspiciously like a scoff. “Exactly.”

The black—usually considered unlucky—cat completed her task of licking the dish to within an inch of its plastic life and stalked off to the porch to sunbath. Nyx sighed and got up, going over to her laptop and signing on. She really did need to look up a good way to relieve headaches and pains that actually worked. But instead of browsing blue website links for migraine meds, she found herself typing ‘Bengals roster’ into the search engine and clicking the first link that popped up. She scrolled down the photos of players: kicker, defensive end, punt returner, wide receiver.........quarterback.

There were three entries for QB: Logan Woodside for third string, Jake Browning as second, and—oh Lord—Joe Burrow. Critically inspecting the photo beside the third guy’s name, she found it WAS him—the extremely attractive young man she had been assigned to kill. Okay, yes, it sounded ten times worse than that. Nyx breathed a sigh of relief; she hadn’t been able to function properly and therefore—ahem—murder him. She exited the page and typed ‘Joe Burrow’, not expecting much to come up, but was thrilled to see a whole ten Google pages of information on him, though no one really went to more than the second. Or third, if they were desperate.

She absently tapped a rhythm with her long, sharp nails (exclusively for emergencies; scratching someone, the like) as she scanned his bio. Hmm. He lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, apparently (she was later to learn he was actually born in Iowa), was 23 years old, the youngest of three siblings, and not currently in a relationship, which made her heart give a conspicuous few skipping of beats. Interesting.........

Two hours later, fully immersed in an article about the quarterback’s journey through a severe knee injury in college football, Nyx was finally aroused from a focused gaze on the computer screen by a loud phone notification.

“Shoot!” she yelled as she promptly fell out of her desk chair and retrieved the device from the table. Just an annoying Pinterest notification: somebody wanted to message her. Well. She’d figure THAT out after she first figured out what bloody time it was.

“And where is that infernal feline of mine, anyway? Oh Lord, the sun’s almost set. Come here, Doe!”

The cat trotted into the apartment from the little balcony overlooking the water—an expensive place to live, but Nyx was well-to-do off of the money from being a professional killer and enjoyed the riverside view of Cincinnati. The job wasn’t exactly evil; it just had a few sinister qualities surrounding the field and was generally a cloaked and secret task, tailored for people like Nyx who wanted to lay low and keep off the radar.

“Bon Dieu, is it really that late?” Nyx picked up her phone again to check the time. “Geesh, I’d better get something to eat. And no,” she added for Shadow’s benefit, “you ate literally two hours ago; you can’t be hungry for a full meal. I’ll get you some of those catnip treats you like out of the pantry.”

Shadow mewed impatiently and gazed at Nyx, almost as if she knew her frazzled owner had recently finished anxiously surfing the internet for anything remotely related to a certain quarterback for half the time she was home. Figures.

Chapter Text

Mid-morning next day, when both her and Shadow were fed and she had gotten her daily dose of I Love Lucy (she was currently rewatching season four for the umpteenth time), Nyx set off to go get groceries and set an order for more cyanide somewhere that was too confidential to even whisper about, slightly hoping it would distract her imbecilic mind from traveling to thoughts of………him.

Unfortunately, Kroger was jam-packed—on a Tuesday??—and she spent half an hour merely in the produce section, dodging carts and apologizing to people who really should be apologizing to her for cutting her off from the apples. She finally decided she didn’t need basil THAT bad and went huffing off to the dry goods.

Once out of the store and into the blissfully large and open parking lot, she couldn’t find her car even after scouring the whole place and beeping the horn on her key fob multiple times. Now really, this was too much. Virtually anyone would be able to find a blacked-out Cadillac in a parking lot but nooooooo it had to be Nyx’s day to lose her ride. Damn.

Cursing in French terribly, she finally remembered the batteries on her key fob were low the last time she checked and therefore probably didn’t work anymore. She found the car anyways after also remembering the car was parked on the side of the building instead of in the midst of the vehicles in front, so that was a nice thought.

Nyx hurried home, having an important call with a potential client in an hour, and barely had enough time to put all the groceries away and get ready before the iMac in the living room rang with a FaceTime call; she sat down in front of it with a sigh and clicked the accept button.

“Miss Imboden, I presume?” Nyx asked loftily, radiating a haughty, above-you-and-you-know-it aura through the screen.

“Yeah.” The young woman looked insecure and ill at ease, visibly fidgeting with the ring on her right index finger. Looked expensive; maybe rose gold? “That’s, uh—that’s me.”

“Charmed,’ Nyx said dryly. “Who do you want me to do away with?”

“Oh, um, actually, I don’t need someone poisoned—“

“—Say it less bluntly next time, please—your end could be bugged—“

“Why just my en—Never mind. I actually just wanted to tell you something.”

The already-irritated assassin’s left eyebrow raised in skepticism. “You simply wanted to tell me something.”

“Yes, but don’t get mad! It was the only way to really contact you from where I’m at, and it seemed like a good idea at the time………?”

“Out with it. I don’t have all day, you know.”

“Of course—So d’you remember your last assignment? When a certain Mr. Armand paid you off to kill Joe Burrow? Y’know, the cute quarterback for the Bengals?”

Wow. So………a lot to unpack in that speech. How l’enfer did this chienne know about her previous assignment???? No one, not even Nyx’s own parents, knew about her job, and none of her clients ever mentioned other assignments she might have had in the past, let alone ASK HER BLATANTLY ABOUT ONE. And HOW DARE she say Joe was cute, le foute idiote--Oh, great, now she was on first-name-terms with him. That would be addressed later.

“I seem to recall something of the sort,” she said cautiously.

The woman’s face brightened. “Good, okay. So the Armand guy was actually being paid off by the Chiefs so they could get the only quarterback to beat Patrick Mahomes 3-0 out of the way for good. Yeah.”

“Damn,” Nyx said, losing control of her facade for a minute. “Are you sure about this? An accusation like that is not something to guess at.”

“Honey, I work for the FBI, you really think that I’m guessing?”

“I will believe you of all people work for our nation’s investigative agency when I have proof. Plausible proof.”

The woman huffed and held an ID up to the camera, displaying what seemed to be a genuine license—But those things can easily be faked.

“I’m an undercover agent,” the woman explained.

“A brand new one, yes,” Nyx scoffed. “If I look you up on my special ‘web-surfing software’ would you come up? Or would it robotically tell me ’Sorry, no results found’?”

“I told you—I’m undercover. No one except the FBI and now you know my real job.”

“I’m honored,” Nyx said drily. “So why tell me your job? What do you want from me now you’ve given me information you’ll want compensation for?”

“I want you to go poison the general manager of the Chiefs,” the woman said brightly.

“Oh, a rogue FBI agent. Makes more sense. There is quite a lot of red tape and then general complications surrounding that request. First of all, how will you compensate me? I assume your boss is not aware of this conversation and has no idea of what you are currently proposing. Next you have the problem of assassinating a prestigious member of the NFL society, which is further complicated by the Chiefs—the favorite team of the league’s officials and Competition Committee, if what you are saying is true—more than likely finding out the whole thing and you lose your job and I go to prison. This may surprise you, darling, but I don’t particularly enjoy jail cells.”

“I’ve got all that planned out. You just figure out how to murder him, and maybe a few other members of the front office while you’re at it, and we’re golden. You in?”

“Your infectious personality has completely trapped me,” Nyx quipped ironically. “Give me your number and I will be in touch. Personal number, not work number; that would complicate things much further.”

“Okayyyyyyy………but call me by Thursday, because I have to have the job done in a really small window of time—“

“Duly noted. The last thing I need is your first name.”

“Drew.”

“How fitting for your career. Goodbye.”

Nyx savagely ended the call before Drew could add anything to her assignment and shook her head in wonder. Shadow came out of nowhere and leapt gracefully onto her lap, meowing incessantly as if she was annoyed too.

“Oh, you didn’t like her either?” The cat purred again. “If she turns out to be a real FBI agent and actually wants the Hunt family dead, this ought to be a trip.”

Right before Nyx was ready to get into bed for the night and settle to reading a new murder mystery she’d picked up at the library—which she would probably name the killer in the first two chapters and also point out all their flaws in the process—her phone buzzed with a new message:

hi its me drew.
I told you I’d call you.
ik but i have on more thing to tell you.
What is it?
the hunt family is currently vacationing in LA.

Well, that simply makes my job that much harder.

yeah sorry i forgot to tell you. i will let you get to sleep now. byeeeeee

Nyx rolled her eyes, opened her book, and proceeded to forget everything that had happened in the past week until the next day, when she actually had the braincells to figure it all out and get a game plan together.