Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's pure chance Hitch is in HQ when it happens. 

His coffee's cooled just enough to be drinkable when a white faced comms desk agent comes barreling in yelling for 'Bradley! someone get Bradley!'

At the sight of Hitch barely escaping a shirtful of coffee, the man nearly collapses, bracing a clammy hand against the desk. Almost grovelling he tells Hitch he 'needs to call Bradley, get him in quickly. It's…It's urgent.'

Must be, Hitch thinks. Hardly anyone calls Bradley 'Bradley', despite his continued insistence otherwise. Always 'agent Baker' with a slight tone of reverence. Especially the younger agents - like this clearly mishired man in Hitch's (well Bradley's but he's off for the weekend so Hitch's) office. 

Reaching for his wristwatch, Hitch sends a mental apology to his friend for interrupting a well overdue break. Pauses with his fingers over the 'find me' button that sends a signal directly to Bradleys watch. 

"Is there really no one else who can help with whatever case you're-"

"It's LB."

The man flails at Hitch's abrupt silence. 

"Her…it's her…it - we don't - it's her car, we don't know what happened but it looks bad." A bead of sweat drips down from his hair. "…really bad and it's too far to get any team out quick enough and…"

Hitch presses down. 

He was only in to file last month's overtime.

-     

He paces the neighbouring office - overhauled into a crisis room - and tries very hard to think of nothing but facts. It is a fact that the engine combusted. It is a fact that the car's engine had been designed in-agency. This fact meant the presence of one very twitchy looking engineer by the printer, and his steadily growing pile of schematics and calculations. The very twitchy engineer looked like he could do with a coffee, or seven, but that wasn't a fact so Hitch didn't think it. 

He starts again.

It is a fact that the roads spider-webbing across the outback can go for miles without any stray indication of another human life. It is a fact that the last location transmitted from LB’s watch places her on one such stretch. It is the reasonable view then, in the face of these facts, that LB is dead. 

It is a fact too, that such concentrated effort on the case of a dead agent was not regulation. Not standard. ‘The dead can wait’, was a favourite placation of Roche’s. Another fact, too, if you got poetic and 8th grade English about it. 

That a single death could rob Spectrum of two bodies. In the face of that neither fact nor poetry mattered. The reality now was that Spectrum 8 would make an effort. Try to pull the body that remained, the one that mattered, back from the wreck that was, as he paced, being eaten by a gasoline fuelled blaze. 

Hitch doesn’t fancy their chances.

-

Bradley comes in quietly, for all the difference that makes. Everyones been waiting. It's all been waiting for him, or it all felt that way, at least.That none of this was real, not until he made it so. 

He looks awful. Hunted. Dangerous, in a way Hitch wouldn't quite have believed he could be half an hour ago. 

He's at his side in an instant, relaying everything, every fact he's managed to gather from the past eleven minutes in low tones. The engine combusted. She was thirteen miles out from the next rest stop. Too far to rally any immediate attention. It was quick. The engineers are stumped. We should have eyes on the crash by 09.00. It was quick. It was quick. Whatever happened, it was quick.

From the first, Hitch could see how Bradleys eyes turn cold at the repeated placations. Could read the fury stoked by the mere implication. It didn't matter. Hitch couldn't really stop.

Because it would be better. Wouldn't it? Quick. Quick enough that maybe she didn't even notice. It was 22.07 in Twinford. No more than twenty minutes had passed since he'd called Bradley. Just minutes away from midday in Australia. The bright noon sky then, and the open road…there were worse sights. Maybe it had been just that. A view. The hazy heat. Then, just as quick, nothing. 

He could see her, suddenly, grinning tiredly into a bottle and leaning against Bradleys thigh, as ‘goodbye drinks’ spilled over into the early hours. Yes, the warm sun. An open road. That had to be enough.

Bradley stood and stayed where Hitch had led, terrifyingly docile, taking in the whispers, their best agents desperately grasping to find ‘potential interference’. Whispers no one in the room was truly taking seriously. Yet still, the printers kept churning out the final diagnostics recieved from the car, agents frantically searching through them for a chink in the armour. 

“Her watch.”

Something more raw and helpless than a Hail Mary. The room falls silent. Bradley glares, and it looks so wrong. Hitch feels cold, and very small and very foolish for the thought. Like a child who wandered too far from the party and discovered the Easter Bunny was not magic. Just a man, having a smoke behind the playcentre; ash falling into the empty eyeholes of the huge fake head on the asphalt.

“The watch that can monitor her pulse, does anyone in here think that might be useful.” He's almost hissing.  

The silence was downright oppressive now. It would be funny, in any other room, in any other circumstance, seeing the Head of 8 look around like a schoolboy caught without his homework. As it was, it sort of made Hitch want to put something through the wall. 

“We - ahem - we think it didn't…didn't survive the blaze.” 

Melting into LB's wrist as they spoke then. Hitch mentally revised his opinion of comms desk guy. He should probably be put in line for promotion. Maybe some sort of medal for bravery. 

Bradley whirled on him, still glaring. “It survived,” enunciating every word, “a forest fire.”

“It's…the temperatures are -”

“Different, I know.” Bradley lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. His breath came painfully slow, controlled and he lifted a hand in contrition. Apologising, to the fucking comms guy. Hitch wanted to shout. To throw something. Get some sense into his friend, his ridiculously, unerringly kind friend. To touch his back. Pull him in, hold him tight then tighter still and say nothing. Because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to say. It was inhuman what they had done, monstrous that he had helped. Putting him here, in this room. Now, when there was nothing to be done - to what end?

Softer now, Bradley repeated, “I know.” A breath. “When can a plane be ready?”

This was directed at Roche, who had paused his berating of Hal to watch the confrontation. 

“A plane?”

“A plane, yes.”

Silence. 

The cost of an open ended trip to Australia was manageable. Not even a budgetary concern. Not any cause to deny the request. They both knew that. 

The cost of sending 8's best agent to wallow in his grief, nurture his resentments, half a world away from the reach of his potentially culpable employers…far greater. They both knew that too. Knew the other knew. So the staring match continued.

Bradley, when he really wanted something, had very few tells. He didn't shuffle his feet, or tilt his head to one side, work his jaw furiously or anything else so mundane. 

He let his weight shift, stance melting into something welcoming and open. Arms down by his side, fingers curled loosely. Ready to talk. Everything about his demeanor didn't so much scream, as politely insist, ‘let's be reasonable.’ From where Hitch stood, half pressed to the wall, he couldn't see Bradleys face, yet he’d bet his record collection it was perfectly affable. Confident. Letting through just enough sadness to keep the sympathy vote on retainer. 

Hitch felt immeasurably tired, all of a sudden. Like he'd never move again. Watched, that was all he could do, the slow press and drag of Bradley's thumbnail against the paper thin skin of his cuticles. Watched, as one by one his fingertips became flushed bright. Drained white. Repeat. 

When Bradley spoke, his voice was soft. Conciliatory. Offering peace terms with every breath. 

"The publicity and technical cleanup operations should be overseen. I can do it - tie up any loose ends" 

“If any files survived the fire - there's no agent more qualified than I am to see the mission to its end.”

"I need to see - to collect…her." 

There it was - the final window. Sincerity, entirely too much to be for the sake of the sympathy vote. Bradley had let the frayed ends of his near infinite patience go. How bloody the fallout would be was entirely in Roche’s hands. 

Roche, who either couldn't sense the danger or didn't care. His every rebuff was gentle. Reasonable. The cleanup, both technical and public, would be routine, no reason to overexert Bradley with ‘circumstances as they were’. The files LB had been carrying could not have survived the flames - if by some miracle they had, then the cleanup crew was thorough. They would find them. Alert whoever needed to be alerted. 

On the final point - whatever was left of her, would, of course, be delivered. With the utmost care. 

Bradleys thumb jerked, slick with blood. 

Hitch wondered at the utter stupidity of the man. Blindness. Believing this was ever a negotiation.

Bradleys mildly spoken words, suspended in the slam of the door after him, suffocate the room completely.

"I am, as of now, on sabbatical. I am going to see my wife. To see where she died. If you refuse to help me with this trip, fine, I will travel as a civilian. I will be discreet, but even I'm not so good as to get halfway across the globe unnoticed. I will be seen and anyone watching, who cares to know, will know. That there was great failure on your part and that we did not part well. That is a weakness waiting to be exploited. When it is, I wish you luck."  

No one makes the mistake of following him. No one even breathes until his footsteps fade.

The brewing panic in the room is a tangible thing. Hitch tries to summon up some sympathy. Fails. Like Roche had failed, not allowing Bradley's enduring compulsion to appease carry them to an agreement. Stupid man. More infuriating still, It was to him that Hitch could not let this bitterness show. Not if he wanted Bradley in a Spectrum-issue plane before he made it off the continent. 

Spectrum would concede, it was merely a case of when. A familiar drag of exhaustion pulls at Hitch. No good to think on that now. The discussion would not continue tonight.

He thinks instead of the calendar in Bradley's office, just across the hall. The one in his living room, his kitchen, his datebook. Of the date circled in each one. He thinks of LB’s delight, three days ago, at the time she was making. ‘Home in time for grandma's 80th!’ relayed down the line in an uncharacteristically bright tone. Both her grandmothers were long dead. She’d be back eight days earlier than planned. She was excited. 

Had been. Had been excited. 

She would have been impatient too. To find out what Bradleys ‘so-terrible-it-made-her-smile’ airport pick-up sign would say this time. They were scrawled on cardboard, usually, and not constrained to airports. Car parks, bus stops, docks or ranches, regardless of location, the sign would be there. An alpaca farm, one memorable time. Their decades long game, its tally incomprehensible to Hitch - he was about 70% sure LB was losing and 95% sure even they couldn't track the score anymore - which didn't matter. That wasn't the point. 

‘I thought they were just engaged…didn't know they'd actually done it…’ whispered snatches of conversation, too loud, in the hush of Bradleys exit. Hitch overhears, without meaning to. ‘When do you think they…?’

'They didn't,' Hitch thinks, delirious. 'I was meant to be the witness. Next May.' 

His vision swims, and someone’s talking to him. Hal, looking at Hitch expectantly and oh, he was meant to be listening. Thats what people do. He can't do anything but stare at the other man blankly until he repeats, quietly;

"We've got some images - very low definition, but it's something. There's a nuclear testing site fifty miles back, friendly. One of their choppers got these flying in. All we'll get until tomorrow.’  

Then he's being handed papers, folded over to hide their contents. Hal leaves him be, with what he must think is a comforting smile. It looks like a grimace. Hitch turns away from the room, as much as he can, shielding the prints with his body. The drone of the printer, churning out more copies, feels sacrilegious. 

Hitch marvels at the stillness of his own hands as he sifts through the prints. Hal was right. Its nothing they didn't already know. It's barely more than some grayscale splodges. Uneven terrain split through the middle by a black stripe of road. Sparse, darker grey shadows that must be trees. A shock of white, cutting the road in two. 

‘Huh,’ Hitch thinks, ‘There it is.’

Chapter Text

He doesn't need to stay, is the thing. Hitch is a field agent - to the ongoing schematics investigations he's about as much use as a hammer to a heart surgeon. He can't even press a button on a photocopier every so often, get it to spit out increasingly clearer images of a blackened wreck, because Hal’s tinkering with it. 

And still here he sits in Bradleys office across the corridor from the crisis room, long past midnight. Pointedly not acknowledging the latest stack of prints. Taps the pen laying on the desk. Watches as it rolls towards the back wall, slows, then stops. Doesn't look at the prints some more. 

He can't do anything . It's…nice. Almost meditative. He knows this room. Knows how good it's been. He'll sit. Soak up what goodness remains. It won't linger long, Hitch thinks, pushing LB's half finished crossword book out of the way of the pen where it had gotten stuck. 

He doesn't have to think about those crosswords lying unfinished if he just keeps rolling the pen up. Letting it roll back down. Up. Down. Doesn't think about why he's here. Why Bradley's not. Up. Down. 

-

'Give him a few days to stew.' Were Hitch's marching orders. Roche had managed, in the early hours before dawn, to swallow his pride enough to admit when he was beaten. His ego would be slow recovering. To soothe it then, Hitch was to stand around for a day or two, to send some insensate message, before doing anything useful.

Still, Spectrum would lend themselves to the trip. No argument. It was one less battle to fight, and for that, if nothing else, Hitch was grateful. 

That gratefulness lasted all of the two hours it took to map the three fastest public transport routes to Australia. Check, then triple check each of their respective departure and arrival times. Call up spectrum X to see which planes they would spare and where to refuel them. 

The plan was ready. Hitch was ready. He sat in Bradleys office and waited. 

Another hour elapsed and twice now people had stopped by his (Bradleys) office to offer coffee and suggest he 'get some rest'. In that order.

By the third time - a well meaning, if entirely unwelcome Dr Selgood - Hitch is ready to slam his head into the desk. Time to go then. Only when he's outside does he really consider that he has no idea where it is he's going . To go back to his flat would be to rest and to rest would not be wise. 

Twinford has three early bird diners, two of which, Hitch frequents semi-regularly. When he wants better coffee than can be found in Spectrum, typically. He considers them, briefly, yet the thought of happening upon some carefree group of friends right now is enough to turn his stomach. He ends up outside Bradleys apartment, looking at the darkened windows. 

Hesitates for shorter than is probably acceptable. 

The front door doesn't creak as he pushes inside. It gets stuck halfway, and Hitch has to mildly contort himself to get inside. Looks down once he's inside, at a bulky delivery box buffering the space between door and wall. He'll take it to the bins on his way out. 

He doesn't reach to click on the lights, unwilling to disturb the pale morning inching its way up the walls. He knows his way around. Wonders, distantly, what he'll do with that knowledge now. No invites anytime soon - game night doesn't really work with two. 

Focus . He knows his way around. What else? Knows that if Bradley had packed in a rush, he'll most likely find some indication of his plans in the bedroom. 

Hitch looks at the closed door for only a second. Moves through to the living room. 

Freezes. 

He'd been expecting false trails. Dummy tickets. Airport chases. For Bradley to be hard, near impossible to track down, even with only a nights head start. 

Not this. Not Bradley looking up at him, red-eyed, from the floor of the home he'd shared with LB for seven years. Head pillowed on the edge of the sofa, he stares. Doesn't speak. He seems abruptly alien to Hitch, some unrecoverable distance separating them now. Hitch sort of wishes he’d been harder to find. 

His legs almost give out. He ducks into the kitchen, curling down against the oven. Breathes into his fist, pushing down the whine pulling at his throat. Guilt claws at him. It burns, the shame of that wish. 

He's so aware of his body. The panicked rush of his pulse; heartbeat fluttering in his numb fingertips. His day-old shirt, sweat-damp, pressing creases into his chest. Folded prints in his suit pocket digging into his ribs. The hollowness in his stomach, the tightness across his lungs. His hair, falling against his cheek.

A warm hand pushing it back. Hitch follows that warmth, mindless. Lets it tip his head back.

Only remembers where he is, what he's done , when Bradley speaks. 

“You need to eat.”

His face twists before he can control it, instinctive protest at the sheer wrongness of the scene. Bradley taking care of him? He can't allow that, he won't -

But he looks up, and Bradley smiles the most tired smile, eyes shadowed and raw. Shakes the hand still pressed against Hitch’s scalp, the kind of affection only given to overeager dogs. ‘Here. quiet now.’ Hitch sinks. 

- 

Wakes with a jolt. Feels the dull remnants of a nightmare drone through his body. Bradley moves his foot back from where it had been shaking his leg. He's sitting opposite Hitch, cross legged on the kitchen floor. There's a plate on his lap, fork balancing precariously. 

He looks…not better. Calmer, perhaps, now that Hitch has broken into his home and made his incredibly poorly timed breakdown his problem. Hitch goes to sit up and Bradleys hand shoots out. They freeze. The fork goes flying under the cupboards. 

“Careful.” 

Hitch looks down to his left, at the full plate he'd been about to squash under his hand. He pauses, sleep-dumb. Picks it up and shuffles one-handed to lean up against the oven. Something solid. 

Bradley makes an absentminded sound of approval and picks up a grape. Chews it slowly, staring somewhere past Hitch. 

Maybe he's still dreaming, Hitch thinks, despairing. Maybe, he's fallen asleep at Bradleys desk. Stayed all the way back in Spectrum, and avoided…whatever this is, entirely. He was supposed to be gone .

“I had to eat too.” Bradley's looking at him, serious and unsmiling. It's not a suggestion. Hitch eats. 

It's good. Not just because he realises, at the first bite, how starved he'd been. Late lunch and 2 coffees yesterday were all that had been tiding him over til now. Hitch eats quicker, pointedly thinking of anything but why he’d not made it to bed after all. 

He feels slightly more real after finishing the plate. 

Realises he hasn't said a word to Bradley. Not one word of comfort, of solidarity. Not even the empty ‘anything you need…’  promises heard only at funerals. He’d relayed the worst information a person could receive then stood, silent, as Roche tested exactly how far Bradley would be pushed. Let him leave and, worse still, had been sitting prettily, waiting for permission to go after him. Hitch feels sick. 

Regretting the food more with every breath, he opens his mouth to say…something. 

‘ I loved her too. I'm sorry about Roche. I'm sorry I didn't do anything. I'm sorry for forcing you to deal with my grief. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If there’s anything you need… ’

“Dont.”

He looks at him from across the kitchen.

“Whatever self-flagellating condolences you're about to offer. Dont”

Hitch inhales deeply. Nods. He forgets sometimes how terrifyingly perceptive Bradley is. 

At a loss, he stands and gets them both a glass of water. Settles back down where he’d unwittingly fallen asleep. Sneaking a glance at his watch, Hitch raises his glass in a silent toast. Fourteen minutes past eight. He’s been out for just under two hours. He bites back the nausea.

Bradleys lips quirk up half heartedly and he toasts back.

The silence persists, until Bradley rolls his shoulders and asks drily, “So when do you set off in pursuit?”

“...what?”

“How long before we can go?”

Hitch blinks at him, uncomprehending.

“What’d Roche need, a day?” Bradley looks at him expectantly. “More?”

“If you'd got on the red-eye to Fiji I could get the go ahead to follow by tonight.” He feels wrong footed, like he woke up one step out of sync with reality.  “It left an hour ago.”

Bradley nods. “That's what I got then. Come, I'll get you a change of clothes.” 

He stands then holds out a hand to Hitch. He takes it, relishing the brief warmth. An anchor point. Follows Bradley out to the living room, leaving their dirty dishes on the floor.

“So you're -”

That's a lot of broken glass. The cabinet where the TV had stood is knocked on its side and the TV itself is…everywhere. There's a clutch of wires by Hitch’s foot that he just avoids stepping on.

“You're… “ he's not going to mention it if Bradley doesnt. “You planned for me to come here?”

Bradley shakes his head, his profile just barely visible to hitch. He looks lost. 

“No.” 

He shakes his head again. 

“No, I planned to be halfway across the continent by now. I…” he looks around, helpless. “...I couldn't go.”

He shakes his head again, brow furrowed, Then, like a switch flipped, nods decisively and walks into the bedroom, clapping Hitch on the shoulder as he passes. Hitch doesn't follow. He won't intrude anymore than he already has today. A meaningless sentiment, considering all he's done; Still, this line, however faint, he won't cross.

With nothing else to do he stands and thinks. Thinks of Bradley storming out of Spectrum. Coming back home, ready to pack and run. Had he started at all - or had that anger carried him right through to tear at the living room until he collapsed? Had he stayed there, on the floor all night, until Hitch came to disrupt his grief with his own?

He finds his gaze drawn to the carnage of the living room again. It's not actually too bad. The TV caught the worst of it, everything else is just crosshairs. He really whaled on that TV though - he hadn't noticed it before. The mid morning light catches on every shard of broken glass. Even the pictures pinned to the far wall caught some. He can see them glinting.

He's always drawn to the photo wall. It's inevitable. The collection is different every time he’s here, even if only by one print. He needs to see. It's one of the only sure ways he has - had - of understanding LB. 

There's one or two prints still commemorating a weekend up the Sequoias three months ago. The rest are entirely mundane. One catches the sun as it falls through fresh leaves - the path outside. One, he's sure, is inside spectrum HQ (strictly forbidden); It doesn't reveal anything incriminating, just neatly arranged pens, her favourite mug and a fresh pad of paper. Someone’s drawn a bird in the corner. A lot feature Bradley. One, just in front of Hitch, shows him on the sofa, clearly caught off guard. He looks back at the camera questioningly, face lit oddly by the TV’s glow. She must have called his name - he's already smiling. 

LB even makes an appearance on the wall herself - a rarity. Made an exception, probably, for the duration of her trip. It's noticeably a different photographer than the rest of the wall. Something in the angles, the way the subject’s positioned. Hitch almost manages a laugh at the mental image of LB attempting to direct Bradleys shot from in front of the lens. 

It's a good photo. 

He’s caught her mid speech, looking past the camera, eyes bright, clearly fighting a smile, and gesturing so animatedly that her right hand is a blur. The tightness in his chest, momentarily eased by the softness so comfortably on show, returns tenfold. They deserved that, the certainty of each other. 

Sun bleach has started eating away at the corners. This set is primed to be taken down, put away wherever LB stashes her ever growing collection. Hitch can't tear his eyes away. Stupid, that it's taken him this long to understand - he won't see them again. 

“Take one.” 

Bradley, across the room with an armful of folded clothes. The shadows under his eyes seem more pronounced from further away. He gestures with his elbow at the wall. 

“Take a few. Can have a look through the albums when we're back. If you like.”

It seems too mundane for LB, just rows on rows of photo albums clogging up shelf space somewhere. Then again…he glances at the… four different shots of sunlight passing through trees. A half cleaned kitchen from behind a glass. The almost painfully obvious excitement to capture every unremarkable moment with Bradley. Maybe it fits better than he knows. 

“I would. Very much. Thank you.”

Bradley nods once, slowly, like falling asleep, then straightens. Something nags at hitch. 

“Got you some slacks, spare socks and,” he glances down at his laden arms, “choice of three shirts. If you want to freshen up you know where the bathroom is. Towels are in the airing cupboard.”

Any other day that would have been an incredibly unsubtle hint. Maybe it is. Hitch finds he’s too worn out to care. He does know where the bathroom is.

It's easier to breathe once the door shuts. He feels as terrible about it as he did when he stumbled into the kitchen but it's hard to be around Bradley now. He's not sure he’s ever felt more helpless in his life. 

Bradleys different, he's distant in a way that’s genuinely unnerving.  

Only standing under the almost scalding spray does he register what it is. Autopilot . He’d overheard LB calling it that, during one of their infrequent arguments. He’d not meant to listen in but hotel walls are so thin. 

He'd thought he'd known what she meant. He'd seen Bradley on the third sleepless night of tracking paper trails. Eyes glazed over, exhaustion seeping from his pores. He'd privately thought her a hypocrite, the way she could fall into her work. Sluicing his hair, Hitch sends a mental apology to her ghost. This is something different.

Hitch finds himself absurdly jealous, that this was something only LB had been allowed to see. That only she’d been trusted with. He doesnt think he has a secret left that Bradley doesnt know, whether Hitch had told him or not. He's too observant. Then, as abruptly as it comes, the jealousy drains. He imagines he can feel it. See it, seeping from his pores and swirling down the drain, in a whirlpool of soap suds. All that remains is a hollow ache of inadequacy. He doesn't know how to help. How to reach him. Resting his head against the tile, Hitch watches the drain until the water runs clear. 

Only when he's halfway dressed, one sock on, do Bradleys words fully register. There is something he can do. Some way he can help. Deliver him, safely, to where his wife burned. 

He feels reinvigorated. 

The plan goes like this. 

Some minutes past noon, Hitch will radio Roche, armed with the revelation of Bradleys imagined travel plans. Roche will pretend to consider letting Hitch follow immediately for an hour or two to try and claw back some authority (Bradleys estimation) - that's when Hitch will go home to throw together his travel bag. Meet Bradley five minutes from the hangar. They don't anticipate X will have more than two agents on the ground so while Hitch is getting briefed by them, Bradley will creep around the back of the plane and climb on in. All he has to do then is stay low until they take off. 

It all works seamlessly until it doesn't. 

Roche agrees to 'negotiate' a plane for seven.

Hitch packs. 

They meet as arranged. 

Hitch walks into the hangar, both their bags hanging off his back. Asks many very involved questions that keep his fellow agents' backs to the plane. 

He does then actually listen to their answers because the SpecX planes are something more than he's used to. Just as he's starting to really regret that lack of sleep, a head pops out of the plane and yells, "If we're going, let's go ." 

The agents Hitch had been occupying give knowing laughs, quickly followed by apologetic glances at Hitch. 'great pilot' they assure him , 'funny guy, good guy'. Hitch smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring way and starts towards the plane with no further preamble. He doesn't care how great, good, funny or talented Agent Zuko might be, he cares, or rather hopes that he hasn't found Bradley yet. 

Bradley had climbed in from the back, if Zuko had just stayed around the cockpit it would be fine. How they're going to hide his presence on board for a seven hour flight, nevermind the layover, is another issue. Not doing anything as juvenile as crossing his fingers, Hitch climbs on board and, for the second time in less than 24 hours, freezes at the sight of Bradley. 

Bradley, sitting unrepentantly in the passenger hold.

"What -" Hitch cuts himself off, glancing at the cockpit. Settles for waving his hands incredulously. 

Bradley leans forward, beckoning him closer and he squats down. Bradley helps detangle the bags off his back as he relays that, "he was on board when i got on, Roche thought you may be…' in no fit state to fly '." He raises his voice just enough to drown out Hitch's indignant half formed protests. "I think he was trying to be kind."

That feels worse. Hitch doesn't say that. He's too stuck on the fact that, "you spoke to him?" 

"Roche? Of course not." 

"The pilot."

"Oh, Zuko. Yes."

Hitch audibly groans. Bradley shakes him irritably by the shoulders. 

" Listen , he doesn't know there's anything wrong. His orders are to fly you to Australia. I show up and ask him to tell you to hurry up and all he thinks is that he's got an extra passenger." 

"Well that might work for you but - " 

" Exactly . It works for me. Let it work." 

Hitch would have bristled at such blatant flaunting of Bradleys privileged status among Spectrum. Would have , had it not been so wildly out of character that he can't do anything but blink.

“Are you ready to go back there?” came a shout from the cockpit and then the plane was shuddering to life beneath them. 

Hitch stumbles back from where he'd been kneeling before Bradley and straps in on the bench opposite him. At the first lurching swoop of take off, Bradleys head lolls against the wall, eyes almost closing. For a brief second, Hitch thinks, hopes that he might fall asleep, but no. He stays slumped in his seat, staring, unseeingly, through a window. 

Hitch looks away, or tries to. It doesn't make all that much difference. He can't stop his brain from recreating, in the most vivid detail it can muster, how Bradley had looked this morning, half collapsed between the floor and the couch. The hopelessness that had radiated off him. Defeated, that was the word. More than anything, how exhausted he’d seemed. Hitch was sure that he hadn't slept. He wasn’t sleeping now either. 

Hitch thinks, furtively, of the sheet of sleeping pills tucked into the inner pocket of his bag.

Shakes his head to dislodge the idea, disgusted. He needs to take them himself if this is where his mind wanders. 

He takes another look at Bradleys shadowed profile. All he can do is try. 

“You need to sleep.”

Silence. 

“...I needed to sleep too.”

Bradley doesn't move. Hitch bites at the inside of his cheek, trying to summon some decisiveness to his voice. 

With a roll of his eyes, Bradley rasps, “You still need to sleep.” 

“ Exactly .” Feeling bold, he adds, “You don't even have two hours on the kitchen floor on your tally.”

The corner of Bradleys mouth lifts at that and Hitch breathes a little easier.

Nodding, Bradley closes his eyes and breathes steadily. Digs his nails into his knee. Breathes In. Looks down at something held in his palm. Breathes out. Looks across at Hitch and nods, almost imperceptibly. Like he's decided something. 

Hitch waits.

Bradley hesitates. Tilts his head and sighs, then asks, “Can you give me a hug?”

Hitch is out of his seat so fast that he tangles one of the straps around his arm. He tugs it free, stumbles and falls gracelessly next to Bradley. Hooks an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in. Bradley clasps him back. He can feel the cold press of his nose against his neck. Feel the soft fabric of his sweater on his cheek. The slightly unsteady inhales. 

The sudden stillness. 

Bradley gasps sharply and rears back, eyes squeezed tight. Cradles his head in his hands. His shoulders shake once. Twice. 

Hitch stills, keeping his hands up in front of him. Bradley sighs heavily, face still hidden. Takes a breath as if to speak. 

“Did -” he chokes on the first word. “Did you -”

Hitch stays as still as possible, mind whirring. Had he done something? Not done something? Forgotten something? He's got nothing.

“...Which shampoo did you use?”

‘What?’

“I…the, the one in the green bottle, I think?”

‘Why?’, he's about to ask. The question dies on his tongue. Of course. Of course. He couldn't have been crueler if he’d tried. 

Hitch rubs at his face, trying not to give in to the overwhelming urge to bury his own face in his hands. Wait out the seven hour flight like that. 

He rests his chin on folded hands and tries not to bite through his lip. Maybe he can find some way to plug the electric razor into the plane. Bradley raises himself slowly, sliding wet eyes over to look at Hitch. Hitch shakes his head mutely, trying to convey with his eyes how sorry he is. 

Bradley laughs. 

Not a cruel laugh, or an angry one. He seems almost surprised by it himself, looking at Hitch helplessly. 

He shakes his head, covering his mouth uselessly with one hand. Slaps Hitch’s knee, pulling him closer. The laughter has taken on a distinctly hysterical edge. Hitch can feel his own face twisting painfully, involuntarily, into a smile. Bradley claws at Hitch’s arm and they lock eyes. The dam breaks. 

They laugh until Hitch’s ribs feel bruised. Until his lungs ache. His eyes are burning. He thinks, distantly, that he might be crying. 

Bradley is bent double next to him, hand clenched tightly to his chest, shoulders shaking silently. 

Hitch puts his arm around him. 

Holds him as the laughter slowly dies down. As his hiccuping breaths slow, then deepen. Pulls him closer, wordlessly, at the one half hearted attempt he makes to sit up. Doesn't move until his limbs grow heavy. 

Bradley's arm is tucked between them, his still loosely curled fist tucked under his chin. It’s holding whatever convinced him to give in, accept some comfort. Hitch waits. 

Not quite twenty minutes later Bradley stirs, shifting closer, pressing his face into Hitch’s neck. His arm falls to his lap. Hitch looks down immediately. Takes in the curve of his palm, the paper half crumpled underneath. He can't reach for it without waking him. Hitch feels oddly cheated. He wants to see her too.

The plane jolts, jostling them both. Hitch can feel eyelashes flutter against his neck, caught between wakefulness and sleep. Hitch can't let him wake up. Knows, as sure as anything, that Bradley won’t let himself fall asleep again. Hitch can't blame him. He, too, is just waiting for the nightmares to make themselves known. 

Bradley sighs heavily, mumbles some unintelligible half syllables. In desperation, Hitch hums, running the back of his hand against his arm. He’d watched LB do something similar, on a coach somewhere in the Andes. It's disarming how fast it works. His body returns to a dead weight against Hitch's side. There are few things Hitch has been gladder of in his life. 

In their rearranging, the paper had slipped from Bradleys hand. Feeling probably less guilty than he should, Hitch plucks it from bradleys thigh. 

Not a photo at all. 

A note.

He knows what it's about, Hitch realises with a sort of distant surprise. Bradley had mentioned it the day LB flew out. A film, due to be in cinemas a week after her return. Something about ‘Bonzo’ he thinks. 

There's a scribble of an arrow leading off the page, tail looping into LB’s slanting hand. ‘This looks TERRIBLE’, underlined three times. 

‘Date night when I'm back?’

Chapter Text

There was something so eternally captivating about fire. The blaze itself, when it got going, yes, but the spark. 

How quickly it engulfed. 

It had been something to watch…For a brief and thrillingly unexpected second, Morgan had thought that he wouldn't do it. That he would choose her. Give up all those hundreds of souls in the power station.

It was in the way his breath shook, disrupting the telephone static. Ignoring her taunts in favour of unselfconscious begging; for LB to ‘pick up pick up pick up….please…” 

Useless, of course. His signal was jammed. 

Not that Bradley knew that. Still now she could almost picture it…how his hands must have trembled over the detonator. How long he held back. 

It was almost a disappointment to see the car go up in flames. Morgan hadn't decided whether she'd have kept up her end of the bargain.

A moot point now. The light from the television flickers violently, pixels struggling to keep up with a blaze erupting over 8,000 miles away. World class - picture transmitted with only a seven second delay. 

Morgan had entrusted Marnie to mount the tiny cameras all along the stretch of road LB was due to cross today. Miles. 

A little overzealous, perhaps. But, better to be safe than sorry and even she could not predict exactly when Spectrum's golden child would give in. She wasn't going to miss a second.

Marnie had complained, in her typical grating fashion and no doubt pawned the task off on one of her knuckleheads. No matter. The transmission was…transcendent. Better than she could have hoped. 

The lack of audio was a shame, but microphones were too great a risk. Too bulky. For all her tiresome traits, Bradley's would-be wife was observant. Morgan wouldn't put it past her to jump out of a speeding car, protection be damned, given half a second of warning. 

Worse still, any inkling of foul play would have her radioing her masters at HQ. Her fiance. Granting Bradley some sort of goodbye. A saccharine speech to cling to. Sweet assurances that it's ‘not his fault.’ 

Revulsion shivers, thick and cloying, up her throat. Morgan pushes it down. Winds the footage back and lets the silent destruction melt the tightening coil inside her. It really is a sight to behold. 

The front bonnet goes up first, flames jumping up and out, jettisoning the hood metres out in front. LB slams the brakes immediately and, watching it back, Morgan feels her mouth twitch with delight. Admirable, those last desperate calculations. It's not a bad effort. Possibly the best she could have done; casting the car into drift, fanning the flames any way, just away from the windscreen. Might have given her a chance to wrench the door and roll out. 

Would have. Maybe she'll tell Bradley that one day. 

Right on cue, locking mechanisms around the rear wheel click into place, jerking the car violently to a halt. The windscreen implodes. Again, Morgan laments for the loss of audio. What she wouldn't give for those screams. 

She lets the footage run, lets the shuddering light lull her into a trance. Three minutes maybe, and it catches up to the live feed.

The car's skeleton is truly exposed now, metal twisting and dripping from the frame. Morgan picks at a bit of pasta sauce under her fingernail and wonders whether any of that molten heat will mar LB’s face. It's a compelling thought, to leave Bradley such a disfigured final image of his beloved. 

…Maybe there won't be a body. The blaze is certainly bright enough. LB melted into vinyl seats and steel bones, leaving not a finger for her lover to deify. 

Yes, she thinks, chewing on her nail. That would do too.

Slow dragging movement behind the car and Morgan stills. 

It's her. It can only be her and Morgan keeps her eyes locked on the screen. Searching. It's not a trick. Not the light. It is, can only be, the labouring drag of a distinctly not-dead body.  

The camera can barely pick it up, through the wall of flame and heat. She reaches for the remote, fingers slick with blood. Whether she's bitten through her finger or tongue will have to wait. 

With mounting rage, Morgan clicks through the live streams and curses every last bastard ever born in the nation state of Australia. 

She'll kill Marnie. It'll be slow and agonising and she doesn't even have time to relish the thought. It's buzzing under her skin, the distance. She can't do anything and someone with a brain has to get to Bradley's death-defying bitch before she ruins everything - 

Deep breath. Slow swallow.

…She can't kill Marnie. Marnie is in Australia. 

Whichever of her minions was unfortunate enough to be promoted to flunky no.1 will have to take the fall for now. 

As for the genius that installed every single camera on the same side of the road…

The thought calms her as she pulls together her escape.  Recites, as she paces, every way she can make him regret. 

The apartment is three years on the market and, unbeknownst to the negligent letting agents, has been operating as Morgan's hideout for four months. For all that time there's little to indicate her presence. The television is the only immediate problem. 

Cigarette butts, a bar of soap and two days worth of takeaway slowly wilting in the fridge can be left behind. Call it a ‘vagrant who snuck in’. 

‘Kids, playing a joke’. Quickly dismissed. 

Sweep of the apartment complete, Morgan opens her briefcase, stowed innocuously beside the television and goes about checking and rechecking its contents. It's meticulously measured. Everything she needs. 

The blaze continues above her as she repacks, ignored. 

Morgan stands, casts the burning husk one last look. The sight forever marred by the weakened, barely moving but alive figure on the ground. She rips the transmitter cables from the wall. 

The room fills with static. The power cable next and then the room is dark. The television hums.

- -

In the alleyway behind the apartment block, briefcase in hand, Morgan steps delicately over the shattered fragments of its screen. Looks up at the open window she'd left behind. Estimates 4 days before anyone notices. If anyone notices.

The nearest payphone is two blocks away. One and a half blocks and she remembers to check her fingers. Unmarred. Runs her tongue over her teeth and her mouth floods with metal. 

That answers one question. 

Clicking her vocal modifier into place over the speaker, she dials. Marnie answers the second ring.

…Marnie is in Victoria.

Of course. Of course she is. She couldn't be further if she tried. 

It's testament to the severity of the situation that even Marnie's obvious distress isn't cheering her. She keeps assuring, through poorly disguised panic, that she can get to LB in 5 hours. 

She can't. 

Marnie's mistake, her panic, that will surely delay her in getting where Morgan needs her. 

Morgan swallows around the sharp sting of her frustration. 

Irrelevant. It's irrelevant.

The car is a blackened husk. Its driver soon will be. 

However slow Marnie gets there, it'll be faster than Morgan. Faster than Spectrum. She will be the one to get the body. Not Bradley. This can still be salvaged. A body. Her body. A body that can prolong Bradley's anguish for as long she chooses. 

The first stirrings of satisfaction curl in her gut.

For a long while yet, then.  

Ending the call without preamble, Morgan steps out of the phone booth. Breathes out one slow, steadying breath, then starts in the direction of an airport. 

- -

Eight thousand miles away, on sunburned soil, LB wills the charred muscle of her arm to move faster. 

Takes in the slow crawl of gasoline inching her way and twists her head, wincing, to the sky. The bright, unbroken blue blurs and swims. She blinks once. Twice. Raises her trembling arm, and fires. 

Thirteen miles down the road, a gas station cashier squints through the window. Stands suddenly, knocking over a half full soda, and reaches for the phone. 

Fifty miles away, a ranger raises the alarm. 

“Arial flare sighted. Heading out. Standby.”