#Angie Solar | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

penny00dreadful · 4 months

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Spies AU - Part 15

Part 1 Part 16 AO3

4th December 2015

Everything was just kind of… floating.

All of his sensations and thoughts and feelings, the building surrounding him as he walked through the empty lobby, every footstep echoing off the walls all kind of drifted in front of him like clouds.

He couldn’t really grasp them.

Eddie wasn’t even sure how he’d managed to drive here safely.

He was feeling numb all over.

His hands, his lips, his brain, his heart, his stomach were all outside of his body, like they knew if he thought about things too hard he’d just end up curling into a ball and screaming.

He would love to do that honestly, there was just so much, but he couldn’t.

He didn’t have time.

He had a job to do.

Eddie refused to think about what had just happened.

He couldn’t.

It would be too much of a distraction. There was some small, paranoid part of him that thought if he did think about it, he would know.

Somehow.

Like he had a window into Eddie’s mind, he would be able to see.

He’d know.

And Eddie couldn’t let that happen.

Creel had him puppeteered on strings for so long, he couldn’t even comprehend what it might be like to finally have them cut.

It was better to keep it locked away, or to keep it drifting through his brain without letting it latch on.

Just keep moving forward.

One step in front of the other.

The elevator dinged and he arrived on the analysts floor.

It was empty and echoing, save for the two voices and the sound of a struggle taking place deep into the half cubicles lined up methodically in their rows.

He hadn't exactly expected any different.

Two women were struggling with each other at a nondescript desk, one he recognised and another he'd never seen before.

The other one must be Robin, then.

Her hair was awry, like it had been tugged and pulled and Eddie caught sight of a few strands littering the floor. There was a cut over her cheek and a blazing, angry fire in her eyes.

She had her hands tied behind her back and though her opponent was armed with a gun, she continued to kick and bite and throw herself around, fighting to get away.

The two screens on her desk were still on, Steve’s flat vitals constantly moving in a line from left to right along with the high pitched ringing coming from her headset, hanging by the wire off the desk.

“Angie.” Eddie greeted when he was within earshot.

Angie looked over at him, a mix of disdain and frustration on her face as she struggled to keep Robin subdued. Her nose was bloody, probably broken. There was a deep gouge over her eye, like Robin had attempted to claw it out and the side of her face was starting to swell, blood dribbling from her mouth.

There was a stray tooth on the floor and Eddie couldn’t help the curl of satisfaction through his gut as his eyes flashed back to her.

He never fucking liked her anyway.

He liked her even less realising she’d been placed here for who knows how long.

So she had been the mole.

There was probably a reason he hadn’t been informed of that. Creel always played things incredibly close to the chest. Only he knew of every chess piece he had on the board.

“It's Angela-” Angie snapped but she was cut off by an enraged screech.

“You!”

A wild flurry of legs came swinging at him out of nowhere. Robin broke out of Angela's hold and flew at him.

“You fucking piece of shit!” She screamed, moving with a speed he really hadn’t expected from her, catching him off guard and kicking him directly in the solar plexus.

He stumbled back a step, completely winded from the hit, but Robin didn’t let up for a second.

“How could you?!” She lashed out at his knee and if he hadn’t stepped out of the way, she definitely would have dislocated it. “How fucking could you?!” She swung her leg back in a large arc and then swung it forward again, clearly aiming for his balls. “You fucking betrayed him! Traitor!”

Eddie was able to dodge it easily enough, he saw it coming and when he batted Robin’s leg out of the way, it was enough to send her slightly off balance.

But she recovered quickly, rearing back and spitting directly in his face.

Something about that seemed to have woken Angela up, about fucking time, and she grabbed Robin by the wrists, yanking her back.

“I’ll fucking kill you.” Robin hissed at him, vicious anger cutting through her words.

Eddie believed her.

He believed that if she ever got her hands on him, she would try her very best to end his life. There was so much fury in such a tiny, tiny woman.

And he couldn’t blame her for it.

“I swear to everything on this earth,” she continued, still pulling, stretching against Angela’s grip to get right up in his face, “if it’s the last thing I ever fucking do, I’ll kill you for what you’ve done.”

Eddie cooly wiped her spit from his cheek with his sleeve, shoving everything in his stomach, his heart down, keeping it away from his face. His swirling guilt was starting to make him feel sick.

With another great wrench of her upper body, she got out of Angela’s hold again and Eddie had had enough, he couldn’t take any more of it or he would break.

He sympathised with her, he really did, but he was done with being a punching bag.

When she kicked her leg out at him again, he shoved against it, nearly toppling her over.

Before she could right herself, he wrapped his own arms around her from behind, holding her tight against him.

She threw her head back with a ferocious scream, nearly connecting with his nose and kicked her heels back violently against his shins.

“Stop your fucking whining.” He snapped, with more passion, more anger than he really felt right then, but needs must. “You sound like a muppet trying to give birth.”

It had the exact effect he hoped it would.

Her spitting anger, her vitriol and violence faltered, for just half a second, half a second where Eddie’s heart stood still, waiting to see if she knew what was good for her, if she was as smart as he’d been told.

With another strangled scream, that sounded a little like a cry of relief, she started trying to hit him again, but nothing connected, nothing landed and he could feel the fight draining from her.

Okay, that was fine, he could work with that, he just needed her to play along.

“Worn yourself out with your little tantrum, have you?”

She turned to glare at him with just as much anger behind it as there had been before, so that much hadn’t changed.

It probably wouldn’t, not for a while.

He got it.

He understood.

“Just fucking knock her out, already.” Angela rolled her eyes at him, standing with a hip cocked, tonguing at her gum where her tooth had once been and her gun held loosely by her side.

Amateur.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Angie.” He sneered back.

He wished, not for the first time, he could just kill her and be done with it.

“Well go on,” Angela waved her gun, her wrist loose, in the direction of the elevator, the direction he’d come. “Go do your job then.”

It would be so easy, he could make it very quick.

He would be able to knock the gun out of her hand and have her neck broken before she could blink again, but he also couldn’t.

“Fuck you.” He spat, but still turned with Robin in his arms, dragging her through the office and back to the elevator, leaving Angela to whatever fate met her when he left this room.

Robin was still trying to catch her breath, still glaring at him as he set her back on her feet and pushed the button for the ground floor.

Just before the doors slid fully closed, there was a sound, so quiet it was barely audible, that came muffled from the office.

But Eddie had been trained, he’d recognise a sound like that anywhere.

The thud of a body hitting the floor.

Good riddance.

Dead or unconscious, it didn’t matter to him. She wasn’t his fucking problem anymore.

He leaned back against the wall as they descended, arms crossed over his chest as he and Robin stared at each other.

Or he stared, Robin glared.

He could practically see the gears clicking in her brain. She tilted her head to the side, just barely.

It was a question in and of itself.

Eddie shook his head, almost imperceptibly, trying to keep the movement as hidden as possible.

Don’t talk about it, don’t ask.

Robin huffed in irritation and he wasn’t sure if it was real or put on. She kicked back against the wall in frustration.

So probably real, then.

“Charming.” He said, raising his eyebrows.

He was met with a scowl.

“Fuck you. You don’t get to say shit to me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. I’m not gonna take shit from the guy who’s fucking kidnapping me and murdered my best friend.” She snapped, her voice breaking on the last two words.

Eddie swallowed back the emotions in his throat, unable to stop his eyes dipping down to the elevator floor.

“That’s what I thought, you prick.”

Eddie didn’t answer back and didn’t look up, tightening his arms around himself, glancing away towards the doors.

They rode down in silence for another few seconds before Robin broke it again.

“And you’re short.”

Eddie had to whip his head up at that, an incredulous look on his face.

“I am not short!”

Robin shrugged, all put on nonchalance.

“Shorter than I thought you’d be.”

Okay, he supposed there were worse things she could say about him, considering the circumstances.

He couldn’t really find it in himself to care too much about the insults. He’d probably be dead by the end of the day if this all didn’t work out anyway.

Eddie stepped forward, grabbing her just above the elbow before the doors opened in case she tried to bolt and kept a firm grip on her through the lobby.

He could feel the heat of her hate-stare burning into the side of his head the whole way out to the car, radiating through to the back of his head.

Just before they got to his car, he slid his hand down her arm, working his finger into the bindings at her wrists.

Not enough to release her, not enough to let her escape, but enough to allow the blood to start flowing again.

Her glare didn’t let up and she didn’t indicate that she knew anything was different as he shoved her into the back seat of his car.

He didn’t push her that hard, but she still flew in, still landed with a thump, still made it look like he’d been forceful which he was thankful for.

He had no idea how many eyes and ears were on him right now.

The car ride was silent.

Robin might be playing along, but her hate filled glare was real enough. He didn’t blame her for it. She had no confirmation that he wasn’t just going to throw her, helpless, into the lion's den.

She had no confirmation that he wasn’t some evil piece of shit.

All she had to go off of was whatever Steve had told her about him, so…

He supposed it all came down to how much she trusted the word of her best friend.

Even though the things Eddie had done in the last few hours had not helped with whatever impression of trustworthiness Steve might have given her.

She was still enraged at him.

He was pretty sure she’d have gouged his eyes out by now as well, if she could have.

Again, he couldn’t have blamed her for it.

He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to overhear what she heard. To see the vitals stop and flatline, to be attacked in her own office, to know that a gun had been shot.

It must have been horrible.

Henry Creel’s mansion loomed in front of them, sticking out in all of its beige bricked glory. The long driveway had been cleared of snow, even as it was still falling, and had been salted.

Eddie would have usually used the back entrance, driven straight down to the garage and entered through the servants quarters, but he knew Creel wouldn’t have wanted that right now.

He would want Robin to have the full Creel experience and that meant experiencing his wealth as well.

Eddie hated being in the fucking Creel mansion.

The wealth here made his skin crawl. It made him want to break things and wipe mud all over the expensive paintings and tapestries.

He felt like he was being watched constantly in here.

More so than he usually did.

Like every single painting, every single statue, every single doorway had eyes that followed him no matter where he went.

Which only made him want to vandalise more shit.

If Creel didn’t know how much Eddie fucking hated him, he’d have shown him over and over and over again by wrecking his shit every chance he got.

If it wouldn’t have gotten him dropped into The Pit again.

No, he never ever wanted to go back there. He’d had enough of it.

The last time he’d been down there he’d only narrowly managed to escape, running off to Steve’s at the first opportunity presented to him.

He wouldn’t be able to make the same escape again, regardless of who he was.

The guards that were dotted around the mansion liked to believe they were the most intimidating thing in the building.

But the way they refused to look him in the eye, told him at least that they had the vaguest idea of Eddie’s position.

And if it wasn’t himself they were scared of, it was Creel.

Even the tiniest noise coming from Creel’s office, where he spent most of his time, had the guards on his floor flinching away, terrified of incurring any kind of wrath or getting stuck in The Pit themselves.

Eddie kept Robin close to his side as he walked her through the opulent hallway and up the stairs.

The various guards along the way eyed the two of them. Some were curious about who this new captive was and why she was being brought to him and not just executed, as was Eddie’s job, but some were giving her eyes like she was a piece of meat for them to play with and it made Eddie’s stomach turn.

Eddie had his eyes and ears peeled and he was probably giving a little too much away, if Creel was watching him right now, he was going to be fucked because as Robin curled herself in towards him subconsciously the deeper into the house they got.

He kept an arm around Robin’s shoulder and tried not to let everything that was happening in that moment get to him.

Robin was starting to panic.

She wasn’t pretending any more, she wasn’t putting on a face of fear to keep up the facade, she was actually fucking scared.

It must be terrifying to be marched towards the enemy boss’s office, not knowing what was to come.

That was probably the only reason she didn’t react to the soft thump behind her, the guard who’d been looking a little too hungrily as they passed was the only one in this hallway.

She might not have heard it, but Eddie did.

The quietest grunt of pain from a second impact, just as they turned the corner, guards being thinned out behind them.

He hated all of these people, hated being here, hated everything that was happening right now, he wanted to peel his fucking skin off, but he kept that all locked away inside.

So fuck these guys. Let whatever happened to them happen.

Creel was a fucking bloodhound, a cruel and malicious one.

Eddie wanted him to believe he’d finally broken him, finally reduced him down to a dead eyed, unfeeling and compliant person, finally, after all this time of trying.

When he’d been sent out for Steve yesterday… that had been how he’d felt.

He hadn’t known how the fuck he was supposed to get out of it. Didn’t see a way forward. Knew that the choice was between Steve and his people back home and how was he ever supposed to make a choice like that, in the end?

But he had, hadn’t he?

He’d broken into Steve’s apartment with a loaded gun and waited for him to get home, trying to swallow down every emotion in his throat as he looked around and remembered how happy he had been the last time he was here.

In the end the choice wasn’t really a choice.

Eddie had learned that, after.

Found out there was some way forward that didn’t break him completely.

So he grabbed it with both hands.

Robin was shaking next to him as he turned them into Creel’s office, opening the door and ushering her in.

He’d have loved to offer her more comfort, let her know he’d do whatever he could to keep her safe, but he couldn’t.

He just couldn’t.

Henry Creel was sitting behind his desk, blonde hair perfectly waving over his forehead, in an expensive grey wool suit. He looked up from his computer when Eddie closed the door behind them, a wide smile splitting over his face that could be mistaken for warm if Eddie didn’t know the man in front of him was incapable of warmth.

“Kas! Wonderful to see you again!” Creel exclaimed, standing and making his way around his desk to stand in front of them. “And this must be the elusive Birdie. Or Robin, I suppose. Lovely to meet you.”

He pushed Eddie back a step with the lightest press of his fingers, like he was a cat standing in his way and Eddie went easily.

Creel circled Robin like a predator, taking in everything about her while she stood with her head held high, despite the tremble in her shoulders.

“Oh, yes.” Creel breathed, coming back around to stand in front of her, nodding to himself. “She’ll do nicely.”

“She’ll do nicely for what, exactly?” Robin snapped, glaring up at where he towered over her.

Creel somehow grinned even wider, showing off all his teeth.

He loved people with fire in them. Loved quenching it. Sometimes slowly, sometimes lightning fast.

“You and I,” Creel tapped a finger on his chin, “are going to have a great deal of fun together, my dear.”

“Sorry.” Robin sneered. “You’re not my type.”

Creel frowned, confused, though it was more than likely put on. “Not your type-?” He stepped back with the realisation of what she meant, almost looking offended. “Oh no. I would be doing nothing so crass as that, Robin. I have no interest in assault of that kind, rest assured.”

“Yeah,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m real fuckin’ assured.”

He smiled again, glancing back to Eddie and then back down to her.

“You’ve got a wonderful spirit in you.”

I can’t wait to break it, went unsaid but they all heard it.

“Has my dear Kas informed you of The Pit?”

Robin shrugged. “Can’t say that he has.”

“Oh, Kas.” Creel tutted like a disappointed owner. “Are you losing your touch?”

Eddie grit his teeth, not even managing to answer before his boss was already moving on. There were shadows moving across the snow outside. Eddie could see them out of the corner of his eye through the large window Creel was turned away from, looking out over his estate, the exits from his house visible, situated right behind his desk.

Eddie kept his eyes firmly ahead, not letting his gaze be drawn to the movement.

“The Pit is what you would call my personal playground. I’m a curious man by nature and I like to…” Creel tilted his head from side to side, “figure things out. Some people have knitting as a hobby, I have The Pit.”

“Great,” Robin nodded sarcastically. “Well, why don’t you throw Kas down there and I’ll wait up here.”

“Oh, Kas is plenty familiar with The Pit, aren’t you, my boy?” Creel smiled at him wide. “On both sides, isn’t that right?”

Eddie tried not to let any shift in his expression show. It made his blood run cold to think of the things he’d done. The things Creel had directed him to do. He never wanted to, never enjoyed it the way his boss had and they both knew it.

Whenever Eddie was due to be taught a lesson, it would be a toss up as to whether he’d be fucking up some poor unlucky soul or he’d be the one getting fucked up.

It just depended on what mood Creel was in that day.

Creel’s grin turned sharp, like he could hear Eddie’s inner thoughts anyway.

“I will say, I thought I might have to send him down there again. When I gave him his most recent mission, he pitched such a fit. But he did such a good job today, didn’t you?” Creel’s eyes pierced through him. “With your sweetheart.”

Creel hissed the word out and Eddie couldn’t stop the flinch on his face, clenching his jaw tight and balling his hands into fists while Creel watched him, hungry and greedy and delighted.

With a slow drag of his eyes, Creel looked back down at Robin.

“Are you a curious person, little bird?”

“I doubt I’m the kind of curious you’re looking for.”

Creel shrugged. “That’s okay. I think I’m curious enough for the both of us. Tell me, Robin, if I were to break your legs and your arms, just by twisting them around,” he mimed doing it, like he was tightening a screw, “and then I just… kept twisting,” he was watching her face, drinking in the badly concealed horror and fear there, “what do you think would happen?”

“I…” she swallowed. “I don't know.”

“Neither do I.” He smiled. “But I can't wait to find out.”

Something both inside and outside the room shifted.

Robin looked like she was rearing up to headbutt Creel as hard as she could or run away while Creel looked like he was eager for her to try.

Outside the office something slid down the wall. They could hear the small thump through the closed door as whatever it was hit the ground.

Eddie’s heart completely stopped for a moment, wondering if everything just got fucked up.

He expected to turn back and find Creel glaring at him, suspicious and endlessly paranoid as he was, or gesturing for him to check what it was but instead he was staring out of the window, looking over the back of his expansive estate.

From this vantage point, high up, he could see almost everything.

It was why he chose this room for his office, so he could see everything.

Creel’s garage door was shuttering to a close, there were multiple tracks through the snow from people running back and forth, the slightest glint of a green laser sight glancing off the snow against the window, following Creel as he shifted.

Everything went to shit from one second to the next.

Eddie had barely managed to close his fingers around his gun before Creel had Robin around the throat, spinning the two of them so she was held tight between him and the window like a shield.

“Don’t you move a fucking inch.” He growled back at Eddie.

Robin struggled against his grip but stopped with an inhale, something pressed into her back.

Once the two of them had shuffled out of range of the window, he turned back to Eddie, who was still frozen in place, fingertips grazing his gun, not daring to move lest the glint of sharp silver in Creel’s hand buried itself in Robin’s back.

Eddie didn’t bother to hide his contempt, his fucking hatred for his boss anymore, the jig was up, but Creel didn’t flinch, just met his gaze with disgust and indignation.

“You think you can betray me, you little shit? You think you can take me down? Well, you just wait, Kas. I’ll make your whole family suffer for this and I’ll make sure it’s fucking slow.”

“My family isn’t under your thumb anymore. Your agents have been eliminated.” Eddie hissed back, fingers flexing, just waiting for an opportunity, an opening. “You don’t have anything over me.”

Under their words Eddie could hear the sounds of fights and gunfire going off around the estate.

Apparently the message that everything had gone to shit and it was the time to attack and not just sneakily infiltrate had been communicated.

From the look on Creel’s face, he could hear it as well.

“It’s over, Creel.” Eddie could feel the hatred, the anger, the fucking rage swirling around him. “I gave the Agency everything. All your tricks, all your escape plans, your backup plans, your panic buttons… every single contingency plan you have in place, they’ve disabled them all. It’s over.”

Creel scoffed. “You really sold me out like a little bitch because I sent you to kill some piece of ass?”

The office door was kicked open and a figure burst through, bloody bandage over his ear where his communicator had once sat, his eyes hard and a gun cocked and levelled at Creel’s head.

“You’re damn right he did.” Steve said.

Robin had opened her mouth to say something, staring wide eyed at Steve, to curse him out, maybe to scream but no sound came out, just a vague breathy sound of shock.

Creel turned his cold but somehow alive eyes back to Eddie. “You gave them all my tricks, did you?”

Robin’s face twisted with a sharp inhale of pain as Creel’s grin split his face.

“Let’s put that to the test.”

With a great shove he pushed Robin forward, directly into Steve who immediately opened his arms wide to catch her.

Creel darted to the side, throwing himself into one of his bookcases, the facade immediately dropping as it was revealed to be a doorway that he disappeared behind, his footsteps getting quieter the further down the concealed staircase he went.

Eddie was so consumed with rage, immediately taking off after him, not stopping as Steve called after him to “wait!”

He knew he’d be leaving Steve torn. Go after him or help Robin and Eddie was pretty confident in which one Steve would choose.

He could take care of himself and Robin was injured so the answer was obvious.

He didn’t doubt that Steve would come after him eventually but hopefully by then Eddie would have ripped Creels throat out with his fucking teeth.

He had to fucking end him, he had to. He didn’t go through all this shit just to have him escape now.

Eddie crash landed so hard into the dark and narrow hallway at the bottom of the stairs, his knees buckled, catching himself against the wall but he was able to stay on his feet.

“Creel!” He screamed after him, so fucking riled up it practically burst out of his throat.

Creel had actually stopped at the end of the hallway, bent over and breathing heavily.

Clearly his fucking yoga or whatever the fuck hadn’t prepared him to run for his fucking life.

As Eddie broke back into a sprint, content to body tackle the guy and maybe smash his fucking head to bits on the flagstones, Creel whipped around, a small cellular like device in his hands.

“You gave them everything, did you Kas?” Creel panted, standing up straight and smoothing his hair back. “Where I keep all my files? All my incriminating evidence? Everything that could put me away for a long time?”

Eddie came to a stop, flicking his eyes in between Creel’s face and the device.

He didn’t answer.

Creel took in his silence with a slowly spreading smile.

“Do you think they’ve gotten to it yet? There’s a lot of security in that room. It’s pretty hard to break into. You should know. You’ve tried before. How many Agents do you think are currently in there?” Creel tilted his head. “A minimum of five by my estimation. To go through everything though? Probably closer to ten. Can you deal with ten more bodies on your conscience?”

Creel moved his thumb. Pressed a button. The next second the underground hallway they were in gave a violent shake, the very ground underneath shifting as the sound and shockwaves of an explosion rocked through them, nearly sending Eddie off balance.

Dust and chunks of stone and concrete rained down on top of him, getting into his hair, his lungs, his eyes.

Coughing and waving his hand in front of his face to try and disperse the cloud choking him, he was met with an empty hallway.

Creel had run off again in the commotion.

With a growl he didn’t even recognise coming from his own body, Eddie took off after him, thankful that the tunnel they were in seemed to be holding, it wasn’t crumbling down around them.

Yet.

There was light coming through a doorway at the end of the hallway but it was difficult to tell what was beyond it, black smoke was starting to slowly filter through the air.

It was only as Eddie threw himself through the door did he realise he was in the underground garage he had led Steve through when they left the Gala, the door he had just come through, concealed, almost invisible in the wall.

Creel wanted a car, a vehicle of some kind, he wanted to escape, to tear out of the building and into the wind.

But luckily for Eddie, luckily for them all, the Agents were ahead of them.

Though the garage was empty of people apart from the two of them, each and every one of Creel’s obscenely expensive vehicles had been rendered useless, their hoods popped open and different engine components strewn around them, their tyres slashed or removed completely.

Even the Ford Model K that Steve had been so in love with on first sight had been disassembled, albeit more carefully than the rest of them.

Eddie supposed that kind of respect was warranted to a car that predated the Titanic.

Creel was standing in the middle of his garage, glaring up at the giant metal automatic door that refused to budge, staying firmly shut, no matter how hard he jabbed at the button on the wall.

Looked like the Agents had taken care of that as well.

Creel turned to him, something wild, almost manic in his eye, like a cornered animal ready to strike out.

“I’m disappointed in you, Kas.” He exhaled, forcefully loosening his shoulders and standing proud, though Eddie could still see the frantic calculations going on in his head, trying to figure out how to get out, trapped in an underground garage with thick black smoke slowly settling around them like a haze, trapped with an assassin he had beaten and tortured into submission, making him a killing machine against his will. “I gave you everything and this is how you repay me?”

Eddie could feel the white hot anger buzzing through his blood, making his teeth vibrate.

“Gave me everything? You took everything from me! You stole my life out from under me and what? You expect me to fucking thank you for it?”

“I expect you to be grateful for the life I provided for you.”

“The life you tricked me into! ‘Just a few jobs.’ You’d said. Enough to get me out of prison and enough to keep Wayne taken care of but it never fucking stopped and I was too fucking young and naive to understand I’d just walked myself from one prison sentence to another!”

Creel tilted his head at him, staring with wide, wide eyes. “You were such a talent, Kas. Why would I let that go? You were so useful to me.”

“Fuck you.” Eddie spat. “You destroyed my life, I don’t even know who I am anymore!”

“You’re Kas.” Creel said, as if it was simple. “I took you from some low nobody, a vigilante with no power to one of the deadliest men in the world, can’t you see that? Eddie was nobody but you are somebody.”

Eddie wasn’t sure what his fucking angle was. Did he think showering him with his fucked up version of compliments would somehow get him out of this alive?

“I think I preferred being nobody.”

Creel’s lip curled up in disgust. “You’re already a nobody.” He snapped, apparently turning his attitude on a dime, the gleam in his eye only getting more and more crazed. “I am somebody.”

Eddie dragged his gun out from its holster behind him, pointing it directly between Creel’s eyes.

“Not for much longer.”

It was like the wild thing in Creel snapped at that, teeth finally bared, sharp and vicious.

“Don’t you find it strange?” Creel asked, sinking his teeth in, trying to make it hurt. “How I appeared at exactly the right moment? When you needed help for your uncle? For yourself? Isn’t it a coincidence that Wayne needed that life saving treatment at the same time I offered you a way out? A way to make it happen?”

He grinned, wild and frantic, knowing he was dead now, knowing Eddie was going to kill him and wanting to hurt him as much as possible before that happened.

He cocked his head to the side.

“Isn’t that strange? That Wayne got sick when he did?”

Eddie was fucking blinded. He’d never really gotten it when people said their vision went red but Eddie saw fucking red.

One second he was standing across from Creel with his gun pointed at him, the next second the gun had been tossed to the side and he was on top of him.

Eddie had one hand around Creel’s throat, squeezing, while the other kept striking down, hit after hit after hit, punch, punch, punch.

Creel’s face was breaking beneath his fist, slowly splintering into a sharp and puddled mess of shattered bone and lumpy flesh and all the while Creel was laughing.

It was getting harder to breathe.

Sobs were crawling up Eddie’s throat.

All he could see was Wayne, strung out and weak on his hospital bed before he got well enough to take his dialysis at home, reaching out for him with a shaking hand.

Sitting on his recliner in the trailer, trying to keep his spirits up while he was left exhausted by the treatment.

Wayne sitting him down and telling him, since this happened, he had revised his will ‘just in case, kid’ to make sure that Eddie got everything, that Eddie had whatever he needed once he was gone.

The breath in him that wasn’t being cut off from the lump in his throat was being choked out of him by the dense black smoke surrounding him.

He couldn’t get a full lungful, couldn’t breathe in properly.

It felt wet.

It felt wet on the inside.

Something was stopping him, something was stopping him breathing.

It was only when he physically couldn’t punch anymore, when the strength drained from him, quickly, far quicker than he thought it should, Creel having been silent below him for a while, did he look down and see it.

Creel’s knife, the one he’d used to stab Robin, was sticking out from between his ribs.

It wasn’t the first time Eddie had been stabbed, but it was definitely the first time he hadn’t noticed.

Shit.

He was going to die.

It didn’t come as much of a shock as he thought it would.

He always expected to die unexpectedly in this line of work.

But he had thought it would be in the middle of a gunfight or some assassin sent after him, able to creep up on him when he was sleeping, though he slept so little.

He hadn’t had a good night's rest in… well. Not since he last slept in Steve’s bed.

But Eddie had always thought it would end like this.

He had even expected it could have ended at Creel’s hand.

Well, he was right about one thing then.

But at least he took Creel down with him.

At least he avenged Wayne.

At least it wouldn’t have all been for nothing.

His body was slipping.

His back hit the ground, to the side of Creel.

He fell into warm wet.

Eddie’s blood was all over the floor.

Maybe that’s why he felt so cold, even though the blazing fire above was starting to creep down through the ceiling, bright orange flames slowly licking their way down from the room Creel had exploded.

It probably wouldn’t take very long for the whole thing to collapse down on top of him.

Maybe that would make it quicker.

There was a chunk of Creel’s brain next to his face.

Gross.

At least he could die knowing his people were safe.

Robin was safe now too. She must be. Steve wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.

Steve would be safe as well. He would have gotten her out, made sure she was okay.

Eddie just wished he could’ve seen him one last time.

He’d probably be a little fucked up about all of this but he’d move on. He was too pretty and too bitchy and too perfect to be alone for long.

“Baby!”

Eddie opened his eyes.

It took a lot longer than he thought it should, just to get them open.

He hadn’t even realised he’d closed them.

Steve was crouched above him, looking frantic, panicked. Eddie could tell, even though he had some kind of fabric covering his mouth and nose.

Well, no wonder.

There was fucking fire everywhere.

He had a nasty burn over his arm, but he didn’t seem to care, just reached down for him.

“Sweetheart.” Eddie grinned up at him, a little delirious, “What’re you doin’ here?”

Oh, it was hard to push the words out. They wouldn’t form properly.

That was frustrating.

“Shoudn’t be here.” He nuzzled his face into Steve’s hand. He didn’t know when it had gotten to his cheek, but it was there now. “S’dangerous.”

“You fucking idiot.” Steve hissed at him, his eyes dripping. “In what fucking world do you think I wouldn’t follow you?”

Eddie hummed a smile out.

“Can’t follow me where I‘m goin’ now. Shouldn’t.” He tried to shrug, but his body wouldn’t move. Steve was doing something above him, he wasn’t sure what. All he knew was that his hands were moving and his arms were moving.

“Watch me.” Steve snapped back. “I’ll drag you back by the hair if I have to.”

Eddie tried to stifle a giggle at that, though it never made it out of his mouth anyway. He tried to make himself say “I like it when you pull my hair,” but his mouth refused to cooperate.

Everything was still drifting.

He opened his eyes again, it took an awful lot of effort and he was pretty sure he couldn’t feel much of anything anymore. There wasn’t really pain or heat, just a dull and cold numbness.

But he had to let Steve know.

“I love you.”

Steve was above him, arms around him. The ceiling wasn’t so on fire anymore. There was less smoke.

“Don’t.” Steve shook his head at him. “Don’t give me goodbyes right now. Tell me after.”

“Wanna tell you now. I do. I love you.”

Steve closed his eyes above him, taking a big breath in. When he opened them again, Eddie smiled.

Such a pretty honey-brown.

“I love you too.”

Eddie’s smile grew wider, everything went fluid, all of it swirling around him.

And then it was dark.

Part 1 Part 16 AO3

@geekymagicalpotato @estrellami-1

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for the magnificent beta work and to the @strangerthingswritersguild for their motivation

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #penny00dreadful #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #fanfic #pennys anniversary event #spies au #spy steve harrington #robin buckley #guy in the chair robin #cat and mouse spy fic #assassin eddie

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