Chapter Text
There were lots of things that Agent Curt Mega knew how to do.
He knew how to fire a gun, how to angle his forearm so that the kick of the bullet discharging didn’t feel like a sucker punch to the shoulder. He remembered Cynthia – “Houston,” back when he began his training – making him fire again and again. By the end of the day, hours after the other cadets had been given permission to leave, he was still shooting. His aim had been wrecked, bullets flying wildly past the target as he tried to keep his shaking arm straight.
“Again, Mega. You think the bad guys will stop coming when you’re tired?”
He’d finally landed three bulls-eyes in a row, his eyes watering from the effort, and dropped the gun with a barely concealed whine of pain.
Cynthia had gazed at him, her eyes unreadable, and nodded. “Better.”
That was the moment he’d realized that she liked him.
Now, Curt could fire a gun without a thought. He braced himself, time after time, almost enjoying the flash of soreness in his shoulder from the recoil. Other agents rubbed their aching muscles in the break room and moaned about how the job takes a toll on their bodies. Curt complained good-naturedly with the rest of them but couldn’t help loving the pain that came with every mission. In that moment, it was just him and his weapon and the target and the kick of the gun, reminding him that this was what he was made for. It called those messy, dark, scattered parts of himself together to make a functional man. If only for those handful of seconds.
Breathe in. Out. Aim. Squeeze the trigger. Follow through. That was all there was.
***
Curt Mega also knew how to walk. Not just putting one foot in front of the other – though that could be hard enough when you’ve been stabbed by a Russian goon who hadn’t even hidden behind the door that well; (“No Barb, I’m not panicking, I just fucked up. And – uh – there’s a lot of blood now.”)
But no. Curt knew how to pretend. As a kid, he would watch people’s feet from underneath his mom’s porch. A woman’s feet, whispering along the concrete sidewalk as she dragged her two kids with her, hand in hand. Responsible. A man in brown loafers, swinging a briefcase sharply by his side. Confident. Bright red high heels clicking against the ground. Ambitious, attractive. A man’s hips swaying with a decidedly feminine lilt.
No.
So Curt learned how to walk from them. The people who passed by his house, who went to his school, who he watched in the shops. And he learned how to exude confidence with a wide-legged stance, how to lean against the counter of the corner store and flirt carelessly with the girl stocking the shelves, how to shake hands with a firm, almost arrogant gesture.
Even years later, day after day, he picked apart every aspect of himself. How did he gesture? How did he emphasize certain words? Could they hear the sibilant ‘s’ he’d worked so hard to hide? Did he sway when he walked, like the man he saw from the porch?
Curt stood and looked at himself in the mirror, leaning to one side, then the other. He gave a rakish grin – “the ladykiller,” his coworkers call it. One flash of those pearly whites and a Turkish baroness would fall over herself to tell him the information he was looking for. She had whispered the stolen diamond’s location to him, he remembered, as he ran his hand through her hair, lips ghosting against hers. It wasn’t real; none of it ever was.
Curt had played so many roles. “Agent Curt Mega” was just another.
***
And so, Agent Curt Mega also knew how to flirt. He raised an eyebrow. Made his eyes linger for just a second too long and let the girl catch him looking. Twitched the side of his mouth upwards like he couldn’t help smiling. Everybody at the 1949 Gala Soiree would testify to the fact that Curt Mega – or, Leon Maxif, as he was known that night – was an amazing dancer, and an extremely handsome one at that.
And yet Curt also knew what to do in quieter, infinitely more dangerous flirtations. He knew how to catch a man’s eye at a bar, how to perform the subtle flick up and down of his eyes that signaled he was interested. He knew too well how to saunter out the door like two buddies – even if the man’s hand was already in his back pocket – and make for the nearest alleyway to steal a rough kiss, booze heavy on their breath. He knew how to watch that man fall asleep in bed and then, quiet as a whisper, shuffle back into his rumpled clothes and erase every trace of himself from the room.
So yes. Curt Mega knew how to do many different things.
He had no clue how to act around Owen Carvour.
***
“Curt. Curt, you with me?”
Curt blinked, his vision refocusing. Above him swam a face, one he knew almost as well as his own. Owen.
“Yeah, I – fuck, what happened?” Curt lifted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes against the fluorescent light hanging above.
Owen grinned, canines sharp and lip bloody. “Well, I managed to get the security codes for MI6 and the name of the gang ringleader that Cynthia needed you to get, while you… lay there prettily.” He tilted his head, almost too pleased with himself. Cocky bastard.
“I was distracting them.”
“While unconscious?”
“I mean, did a single guard see you stealing files? No. They were congratulating themselves on having caught me. Distraction gold.”
Owen rolled his eyes and flicked his hair out of his face. “If you say so.”
Curt hummed his agreement and slowly clawed his way up the wall to a standing position, head ringing. Maybe he had overdone it – though he’d never admit it to Owen in a million years. He focused on getting the floor to stop swaying beneath his feet, and, without a word, Owen braced his arm against Curt’s back and helped him limp to the door.
And fuck him, because that simple movement sent a jolt of warmth straight to Curt’s stomach. This is the concussion talking, he reminded himself as he fought to keep his face impassive. Owen’s off-limits. That’s the rule.
“How’d you get that swollen lip, then?” Curt asked as they made their way to the car hidden behind a fallen fence.
Owen scoffed, and oh God it was beautiful.
…Curt definitely had a concussion.
“Got caught by surprise when I was coming to find you. I dealt with him.” And there was something darker in the undertone of his voice there, something that Curt didn’t dare pry open just now. But he reveled in it all the same. Owen’s darkness, the shadows beneath his eyes, the snarl hiding behind his thin lips, the blood on his hands – they were the only things that matched Curt’s constantly tapping fingers, his viciousness, the ever-persistent, feral, triumphant ache in his shoulder that reminded him that he could never be anything else.
They were weapons, both of them.
Playing that part, at least, was one thing that Curt Mega knew how to do.