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Kuroo and Bokuto were thrilled. They’d finally get to work with the guy Iwaizumi had gotten his panties in a bunch about. Sure, they’d been spying on the guy for months now, but hadn’t really had a chance to properly scout him out until now.
There’d been quite the buzz at HQ, when this Oikawa-guy had accepted the job offer and moved in. There was a betting pool about how long it’d take for him to move across the hall into Iwaizumi’s rooms.
So far, Bokuto had lost, his bet having been on one week. Kuroo was still in the game with his guess of nine months. Why nine months? He might not know this Oikawa-person, but he knew Iwaizumi, and that man was probably the most emotionally handicapped person Kuroo had ever met.
It had now been eight months to date. Kuroo wasn’t even worried yet.
It had taken a car bomb for Iwaizumi to land himself in the infirmary on an extended medical leave. It just so happened that this event coincided with an infiltration and extraction job into a shady pharmaceutical company’s building, so Daichi had assigned the job to Kuroo and Bokuto. Oikawa was to come along, as it was supposed to be an easy enough mission to start his field work clearance training. He’d done a few field surveillance ops with Iwaizumi, but this would be the first one since Malta that he’d be out of a van.
So of course everything had to go tits up.
“What are you doing here?”
Oikawa whirled around on his heels, holding a rag. “Cleaning?” He offered, gesturing to the cart of cleaning supplies next to him and to his blue overalls.
The three security guards glanced at each other before one of them took out a pack of zipties. “Nice try. The cleaning crew left hours ago.”
Oikawa shook his head, taking careful steps back. “I’m just really slow, you know, and they left me behind to finish up this floor,” he said. “Come on, guys, cut a newbie some slack, eh?”
One of the guards grabbed a bucket from the cart, and took out the gun he’d hidden there. “What kind of cleaning were you planning on doing?”
Moments later, Oikawa was escorted out of the office, his hands ziptied behind his back, and he suddenly came to the conclusion that someone might’ve fucked up at some point. When he was taken into a small room in the basement, shoved onto a chair, his arms taped to the backrest and his legs taped to the chair legs, he thought it must’ve been him who’d fucked up.
He was vaguely aware that he was being asked questions. They’d injected something into his shoulder, it was making him seriously loopy. They asked him questions, but he refused to answer them. He kept babbling nonsense, which seemed to make the people around him upset.
They injected something else into him. It burned. It burned so bad. Someone was screaming. He realized it was him. It hurt so much he couldn’t see straight.
Through the haze, he could tell the people were still asking him question. How did they expect him to answer if they kept hurting him like this?!
The pain wasn’t going anywhere. His throat hurt from screaming, even tears felt like they were burning.
His shoulder was grabbed. Someone was cutting away the tape on his arms and legs, and cut off the ziptie from around his wrists. He fell forward with a cry, and met with someone’s solid figure. He heard two familiar voices, then there was a blur of movement… Then nothing.
--
Iwaizumi felt helpless. He couldn’t do anything but watch as the men on the screen surprised Oikawa, tied him up and took him away. “Do something!” He yelled into his headset, trying to prompt the other two agents on site to take action.
“We can’t! I’m stuck in the CEO’s office and Bokuto’s busy with Security!”
“Someone do something!” Iwaizumi yanked the headset from his ear and threw it at the wall furiously. He should’ve gone with them. He should’ve been there.
“The camera in Oikawa’s glasses and the button-microphone are still active, Iwaizumi-san,” Akaashi said, pointing at his screen.
They heard the men ask questions. They heard Oikawa not answer them. Iwaizumi saw them preparing an injection, then heard Oikawa’s surprised inhale.
Whatever they’d given him, it was just making him more uncooperative, and judging from the slurring of his voice, doped.
“We’re clear, heading for Oikawa’s position now.”
Kuroo’s voice did nothing to soothe Iwaizumi’s frayed nerves. He watched as someone prepared another needle.
Then Oikawa started screaming. Iwaizumi felt his heart shatter. He just sat there numbly, listening to his lover’s heart-wrenching screams. This was all his fault.
Oikawa’s screaming turned into hoarse moaning and desperate crying. Iwaizumi clenched his hand into a fist.
Kuroo and Bokuto took out the men before untying Oikawa.
“Shit, he’s completely out of it.”
“Knock him out!”
“I’m sorry, Iwaizumi, but I have to do this.”
He watched Kuroo’s fist hit Oikawa’s face, making the crying stop abruptly as Oikawa slumped into Kuroo’s arms.
Akaashi switched his headset to their frequency. “Control to Team Echo. Proceed to Exit Bravo. Please confirm.”
“Exit Bravo, confirmed,” came Bokuto’s uncharacteristically tense reply.
“Rendezvous point 4-1-India-Oscar. Please confirm.”
“4-1-India-Oscar, confirmed. Moving out.”
“Iwaizumi-san.”
The soft voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked at the young, dark-haired man next to him. Akaashi looked unaffected as always, but Iwaizumi knew the man was more than he let on.
“Sugawara-san would like to see you. He says it’s urgent,” Akaashi said, nodding towards the pop-up window on his laptop. Their internal IM system was something to be feared.
Iwaizumi stood up slowly, trying to ignore his protesting ribs. Suga was probably mad at him for sneaking out. He slowly began making his way back to Medical, leaning heavily on the crutch he’d stolen, hearing Akaashi contact the Evac team behind him.
--
Kuroo heard everything through his earpiece. He heard the mark’s Security surprise Oikawa, and them taking the junior agent somewhere in the basement. He cursed. Iwaizumi was yelling into his ear, but there wasn’t anything he could do. He had to copy the files from their mark’s office before he got caught, too.
As soon as he was done, he headed for the Security room to find Bokuto waiting for him out in the hallway. They headed down in the basement together, managing to remain unseen all the way to the room they held Oikawa in. The screaming was making him uncomfortable, even if he himself had been subjected to some creative methods of torture during his career.
When Bokuto kicked the door open, Kuroo moved. He went for the furthest guy first while Bokuto took out the guy nearest to the door. They had a system like that. Kuroo took out the guy’s kneecap with a well-placed kick before moving to the next one. A kick in the jaw, fist to the gut, complete with a knee to the crotch.
By the time they’d taken out the four men, which had only taken them a couple of minutes, Oikawa’s screams had quieted into sobbing. Kuroo untied him as fast as he could and grabbed his shoulder to get his attention.
He shook his head. “Shit, he’s completely out of it,” he cursed, glancing at Bokuto.
“Knock him out!” The usually cheerful man hissed, collecting the used needles and the three vials of unused liquid from the table.
Kuroo took a breath, pulling his fist back. “I’m sorry, Iwaizumi, but I have to do this.”
He punched Oikawa without further ado, and was relieved to see that the man was out like a light immediately. He gathered the brown-haired man into his arms, nodding to Bokuto.
They left the building as fast as they could while remaining unseen as much as possible, him carrying Oikawa while his partner took care of hindrances along the way. They made it to the rendezvous point two minutes before the MedEvac helicopter landed. Luckily Oikawa was still sleeping.
--
Bokuto had just finished tying up the good folks of Security when he heard the first signs of trouble through his earpiece. He looked up the screens and saw Oikawa being detained. “Fuck,” he cursed, setting up the remote access link for Akaashi before checking the cameras for Kuroo. “Bro.”
“I heard it too. What’s your status?”
“Finishing up here,” Bokuto answered, keeping an eye out for Oikawa and where the security men were taking him. “Three guys, they’re taking him into the basement level. A fourth one’s stationed there.”
Another screen showed that he was going to be having some guests soon. “Come get me when you’re done, I’m entertaining people,” he glanced around the room, coming up with a plan in seconds.
He climbed on top of the file cabinet next to the door and waited until the door opened and two men walked in. They hadn’t expected to see their coworkers tied-up and out-cold on the floor, and they certainly weren’t expecting to be jumped on from above.
Bokuto jumped down, aiming his feet on the second man’s back. He hit his target easily, and used the impact to bounce off him, landing well behind them smoothly. He was back up in a heartbeat, driving his fist into someone’s jaw before dropping into a crouch and kicking the still-standing man off his feet, narrowly dodging a baton aimed at his head.
He stood up, admiring his handiwork for a moment before tying the now unconscious men up with their own zipties.
“On my way there. Party still on?”
“No, owl-ready cleaned up,” he replied, snickering at his own joke and glancing at the screens one last time before joining Kuroo out in the hallway. “Basement level, third door on the right. Four guys,” he updated his partner as they made their way down.
Soon enough, they stood in front of the door, hearing Oikawa’s screams in both their earpieces and through the door. Bokuto glanced at Kuroo, nodding to him with a grim expression. Kuroo crouched down, preparing to attack.
Bokuto took a breath and did what he did best: kicked a door in. The door dropped off its hinges, which reminded Bokuto that he should replace all the screws in the doors in his quarters with longer ones once they got back to HQ. The door hit the guy closest to it, which made Bokuto’s job easier. As Kuroo took care of the two guys furthest from the doorway, Bokuto punched the remaining guy in the throat before grabbing his head and slamming it on the wall.
Kuroo was with Oikawa. Bokuto saw the needles and unused vials of liquid on the table, pocketing them for Suga.
After Kuroo had successfully knocked out their junior agent, they went to leave the building. Akaashi’s cool, collected voice in his ear had given Bokuto a new boost, and he took the few obstacles (namely, other security guards) in their way out with glee.
He dislocated someone’s shoulder with a happy little ‘hoot’ and broke a wrist with a cackled ‘do you need a hand’. He was almost disappointed when they reached the rendezvous point without any more resistance.
--
“Control to MedEvac, prepare for take-off.”
The moment he heard the intercom speaker buzz into life, Nishinoya tapped Asahi’s shoulder, hopping off his seat next to him and running towards their helicopter. “Come on, guys, we gotta go!” He yelled, giving Tanaka an affectionate kick to his backside as he ran past him.
“Son of a—“ Tanaka cursed, jumping up and heading after him, Asahi trailing mere steps behind him.
Noya was starting up the rotors as the two of them climbed aboard, Tanaka sitting in the co-pilot’s seat while Asahi took a seat at the back.
Tanaka put his headset on, switching it to Control’s frequency. “MedEvac to Control, where do you want us?”
“Rendezvous point 4-1-India-Oscar, three agents, one unconscious. Please confirm.”
Tanaka glanced at Noya, who was pulling up the rendezvous point to their navigation screen. “4-1-India-Oscar, three agents, one unconscious, confirmed. ETA 15 minutes.”
“Be advised: unknown substances injected to unconscious agent.”
“Did the substances cause loss of consciousness?” Asahi asked, buckling himself up and grabbing his bag from under the seat.
“Negative. Unconsciousness by manually induced blunt-force trauma.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Noya frowned, directing them into the night sky. He was just a pilot, he knew nothing about that kind of stuff.
“Kuroo punched his lights out.”
“Ohhh,” Noya nodded, filing that away for future reference. “Roger that.”
--
When Oikawa came to, he was lying down. He opened his eyes, forcing the now-dull pain to the back of his mind as he tried to make sense of what was currently happening.
Blurry faces came into focus. Asahi was sitting on his right, holding a bag of clear liquid up. Kuroo and Bokuto sat on his left, bickering about something. “Guys?” He asked, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.
“How are you feeling, Oikawa-san?” Asahi asked, immediately hovering over him, checking his eyes.
“It hurts,” he whined, “but not as much as before.”
Asahi smiled in relief. “Good. We have to wait until we get back to base to analyze exactly what they gave you, so unfortunately you’ll have to bear with it for a little longer. It doesn’t seem to be effective for too long, though,” he said apologetically.
Something else occurred to Oikawa then. “Why is my face cold?”
Asahi glanced at Kuroo. “I, uh, put an ice-pack there. To reduce swelling.”
“Swelling? Why is my face swelling?” He looked back and forth between Kuroo and Asahi, silently demanding an explanation.
“I may have punched you,” Kuroo eventually admitted, shrugging.
At Oikawa’s shocked stare, he threw his hands up in surrender. “What was I supposed to do? You were in pain, dude! The least I could do,” he said defensively.
“Thank you,” Oikawa said, smiling despite the dull throb in his head.
Kuroo looked dumbfounded before he looked away, a slight pink touching his cheeks. “It’s nothing,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Aww, are you blushing, bro? That’s so sweet!” Bokuto cheered up immensely at the prospect of teasing his best friend.
“Shut up, you want a punch too?!”
“Please stop fighting! Kuroo! Bokuto!”
Oikawa fell asleep to the sound of a scuffle and distressed yells. It was comforting.
--
When he woke up again, he was lying in a bed. It certainly wasn’t his bed. His sheets had a much higher thread count than these. The steady beeping from somewhere in the near vicinity confirmed his suspicions: Medical. Hardly a surprise, all things considered.
He felt a weight on his left hand, and curiously turned his head towards it. His heart melted at the sight.
Iwaizumi was fast asleep, his head pillowed on their joined hands. He sat on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, which meant that he’d snuck in instead of asking Suga to set up a bed or something for him. Which probably meant he wasn’t supposed to be here.
“You should go sleep in your own bed, Iwa-chan,” he whispered, nudging the man awake.
Iwaizumi sat up swiftly, then winced and curled into himself a bit before slowly straightening up. “I wanted to be here when you woke up,” he said, keeping his voice low.
Oikawa smiled, squeezing Iwaizumi’s hand. “I’m fine. I don’t know what Suga-san gave me, but the pain’s gone, which is great.”
Iwaizumi’s brow furrowed. “That was what they’re developing. The files Kuroo copied off the CEO’s computer confirm it. They’re developing something to hurt people with, and they tested it on you,” he rambled in a hurry. “The formula to negate the effects was in the files.”
Oikawa blinked. “Oh.”
Iwaizumi sighed. “Yeah, ‘oh’. Look, are you okay? Will you be okay?” He asked.
There was something desperate in Iwaizumi’s voice, something Oikawa couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I think so,” he replied slowly. “I mean, I’m not going to forget that for a while, but I’m not going to let that stop me from going forward.”
There was a tense silence for a while. Iwaizumi broke it with a quiet and steady “I love you.”
Oikawa’s eyes widened. He had NOT seen that coming.
Sure, he’d known he was definitely in love with Iwaizumi for a long time now, but he hadn’t said it yet. He hadn’t wanted to put the other man under that kind of pressure. "Iwa-chan,” he smiled.
“I’ve meant to say that for a while now,” the dark-haired man muttered, not looking at him. “But today… I don’t know. For a moment there I thought I might lose you, and I couldn’t go another day without telling you. You don’t have to say it back if—“
“Iwa-chan, you’re being silly again,” Oikawa interrupted him, sitting up and kissing their joined hands. “I love you too. Now go to sleep before Suga-san finds you here and gives you enough sedatives to put down a horse.”
--
Kuroo walked into the analysts’ unofficial breakroom a week after the more or less successful job. He was intending to check on the flip board that housed the betting pool chart before heading over to the training center to meet Bokuto. The flip board had been set up in that specific room because Iwaizumi very rarely spent time there. Much to his disappointment, Asahi’s name had been circled, with added exclamation marks and smiley faces. Noya’s doing, he suspected.
Asahi had guessed eight months and a week. Kuroo had been so close! “Oh come on!” He exclaimed angrily, kicking the wall in frustration.
Iwaizumi limped in with a knowing smirk. “Something wrong?” He asked, looking like the cat that caught the canary.
Kuroo whirled around on his heels, glaring daggers at him. “You son of a bitch,” he hissed, “you knew!”
Iwaizumi shrugged. “Shouldn’t have included Noya in the pool. He let it slip, and Asahi crumbled after a couple of specifying questions after Noya fled the scene.”
The taller man growled. “I will get back at you for this.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Iwaizumi replied breezily, limping back out with a flippant wave.
Kuroo stared at his retreating back. “Good choice, by the way,” he called after him, succeeding in stopping the man to his tracks.
Iwaizumi looked over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
Kuroo jogged up to him and began walking with him, matching Iwaizumi’s pace as the man resumed walking. “I heard everything. He didn’t let anything slip, even when he was doped up and in pain. And you’ve been less of a prick since he’s been around, so…” He trailed off, shrugging. “Nice catch, I guess.”
Iwaizumi stared at him for a moment before snickering. “Thanks,” he smiled. “Oh, by the way, I’m glad you punched him.”
“It was nothing,” Kuroo shook his head, somewhat awkward. He didn’t like all the touchy-feely stuff. “Kind of like putting down a sick pet or something, just the right to do.”
“Oh, that too,” Iwaizumi acknowledged with a nod. “Mostly because sometimes he’s just so annoying that I want to punch him in the face, so I'm glad someone got to do it.”
Kuroo cackled out of pure delight.