There’s a young man in an evening jacket and scuffed loafers waiting by the taxi stand, next to the giggling couple and the tired salaryman, at eleven pm that night.

Few are around at this hour- it is a weekday night after all, and the only ones up and about are exhausted, frazzled men and women hoping to get home as soon as possible, passing strays, and the occasional bunch of rowdy teenagers, who give the man at the taxi stand a wide berth, anyway, at the dark, warning glint in his eyes. There’s something under those deceptively wide eyes and the delicate slant to his features, something dangerous and threatening that sends them scuttling meekly by.

The businessman disappears into the first cab that comes, and the man gestures briskly for the couple to go ahead into the next one, fingers drumming impatiently against his sleeve. His ride is late.

Of all the days, they have to pick this one to be late, he grumbles at the back of his mind, tip of his shoe tapping insistently against the asphalt, (abnormally large, according to Baekhyun, but Baekhyun’s an ) ears alert to the slightest sound in the darkness.

Park Chanyeol should technically not have reason to be afraid.

After all, he’d completed his first espionage mission at the age of sixteen, first corporate, then government, local, then overseas, killed his first target at age eighteen, moving from chaebols to gang lords to politicians and senators, and up till today, reigns through the SM Foundation, even, as one of Unit EXO’s most popular agents. If anything, other agents should be fearing him.

Well, he thinks, in a last-ditch attempt to comfort himself. At least it wasn’t a YG agent.

Out of the three, at least, it was generally agreed amongst their circles that it was probably the safest to offend a JYP agent- they were predictable, operated by a standard set of rules with a standard set of loopholes, and if you messed with their territory or stole their clients they’d most probably let it slide for the sake of preserving peace between the three companies. But Chanyeol hadn’t just done any of those two days ago.

They liked to say there was a star player, an MVP, of sorts, in each Unit- he’d say he was EXO’s just to piss Kyungsoo off, but even Jongdae’s admitted that he’s “contributed more, or whatever” to their unit’s success (take that, Baekhyun). But in this context, it’s well known, among their clientele and the authorities, even, that Jackson would be one of the so-called MVPs of JYP’s 7^th Unit.

Chanyeol grimaces and sighs. Baekhyun’s right. I’m an idiot for taking this job.

Another loud bunch of teenagers amble past, and one joins him at the taxi stand, glancing at his watch, studded snapback pulled low over his blond-dyed hair, chuckling as he pulls out his phone to start scrolling.

Chanyeol curses under his breath, considering hotwiring one of the cars in the outdoor carpark he’d seen by the park some distance back, but adding more trouble that might get him traced is not what he intends to do tonight. You can’t trust these drivers for anything, seriously.

Besides, he internally flinches as the man beside him sighs, it probably won’t be useful now, anyway.

The current picture feels like it’s frozen for what feels like hours, and Chanyeol’s never been the best at waiting, not like Xiumin. He tries now, though- the stakes are too high not to, anyway.

“Your ride coming late?” the young man is the one to finally break the silence, asking conversationally, tucking his phone back into his pocket, tugging at the flaps of his jacket listlessly.

“Yeah, late,” Chanyeol replies shortly, making a mental note to kick Jongdae when (if) he gets back to the Incheon Base. He’d promised him that the driver he’d hired was efficient. Too late now.

“Can’t trust anyone these days,” the man laughs, like he’d found something particularly funny about that. “Anyone you hire can just forget, or be outpaid.”

“Or be dead,” Chanyeol suggests, turning to face the man, forcing back the gulp at the smile on his face.

This isn’t standard.

“Or be dead,” Mark Tuan nods assent, before glancing casually out into the empty road. “Which one do you think it is?”

The agents know stories about the others- Junmyeon memorises those profiles religiously, but some are passed by word of mouth, the more dramatic, the more likely it is that it’ll be spread. And everyone knows Mark’s story.

The details are a little flimsy, of course, but half the people who used to tell it either aren’t around to corroborate the facts anymore, or aren’t mentally capable of stringing sentences longer than a couple of words together now.

But the Academy should’ve changed that. Unit 7’s changed him- at least, that’s what everyone says.

“Are you here for something?” Chanyeol says it a little louder, as if that’ll drown out his convoluted train of thought, hands still tucked in his coat pockets. It’s okay, he tells himself firmly, as long as you stick to your side of the protocol, there’s nothing he can do to hurt you. “If you were on an assignment you wouldn’t have time to stick around and talk.”

Mark doesn’t look at him for a while, before sighing, taking a hand out of a pocket to check his watch again. Chanyeol’s ashamed to admit he takes the bait, glancing over warily, stomach turning to ice at the coppery smudges on his pale skin, the smell of iron clinging in feeble strains to the air, like evidence and a guarantee of death at the same time.

This isn’t normal. They don’t operate like this.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Mark smiles, then, voice encouraging. “What am I here for?”

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Chanyeol stands, bristling- mind games aren’t his thing, not like they are for Kyungsoo and Xiumin.

“Didn’t have to shoot Jackson either.”

There’s a petrified silence throughout Chanyeol’s entire brain as he turns back to face Mark. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, don’t with me now, Park Chanyeol,” Mark says casually, absently thumbing away a dark smudge on his watch, his posture the picture of relaxation. “This would just be a lot easier if you owned up.”

“Well it would be a lot easier if I actually knew what it was you were accusing me of,” Chanyeol sticks to his story. Don’t slip up. You never did anything wrong. You’re saf-…

“How’s this,” Mark turns to face him properly, and Chanyeol almost, almost, jumps. “You were issued poisoned bullets, breached code of conduct to take on a job directly clashing with Jackson’s one, shot him, then left him for dead,” he rests a hand lazily on his knee- a bronze knuckleduster glints softly in the dim lamplight. “And now, you don’t want to admit it.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Chanyeol says, agitation working into his tone despite the voice that sounds a lot like Junmyeon’s at the back of his mind, don’t slip up, don’t give them a reason, don’t-…

“The poison that coated the bullets,” Mark slices calmly through his train of thought. “I want to know what it is and where the antidote can be found.”

“I’m leaving, I don’t have to listen to any of this,” Chanyeol says abrasively, standing to go- he’s going to follow protocol, and protocol says he can’t hurt me. Protocol says he can’t-…

Mark moves faster than he can compensate for- Chanyeol barely manages to dodge, the metal grazing his crown, leaving him stunned. The other man doesn’t make the mistake of stopping to catch his breath- he throws hit after hit, all with an accuracy that would be deadly if Chanyeol hadn’t moved out of the way a split second before he did.

Unless he’s not following protocol.

He spins off the bench, body wound like a spring, head pounding from the first blow, but Mark doesn’t miss a beat, blocking off his attempt to run with no hesitation, moving to kill.

This is abnormal. Unnatural.

“Unsanctioned,” the word drips with cool venom, making Chanyeol’s stomach turn to ice, as he barely manages to miss a blow aiming for his throat. “Surprised? Thought that if you ed with us, we wouldn’t fight back?” Mark’s eyes are on fire, that’s the only way he can describe it- burning and bitter, the same way he’s smiling. “You’re right,” his breathing’s barely been compromised, words still prowling with that same quiet tread they tell stories about. He finally lands a blow, catching Chanyeol on the shoulder, hand curling back to slam him, headfirst, into the rusted metal poles of the taxi stand, pitching him back into the bushes.

Chanyeol’s head splits from the pain, stars flying, and he rolls over, body screaming at him to run, but Mark pins him down, sending another fist into the side of his head.

“Except it’s not us this time,” Chanyeol’s vision fades into black, then white, pain pounding through his skull. “It’s just me,” Mark says, with a detached tone of finality. “And I’m going to ing kill you.”

“You’re crazy!” Chanyeol chokes, body jerking in an attempt to pitch him off, but Mark’s hand curls around his throat, and immediately, his eyes start to water.

“There’s a poison you shot him with. I want to know what it is and where the antidote is,” The other man says, voice quiet and the sanest Chanyeol’s heard all night.

“I don’t know what the you’re talking about!” Chanyeol says thickly, through the blood that’s beginning to drip from his nose. “There was no poison, you’re ing insane!”

“Trust me, you piece of , it doesn’t take sane to know that if you don’t tell me where the antidote is, you’re sure as going to die,” Mark snarls. “And if you don’t tell me where it is, I’m going make sure you go limbless and buried alive somewhere no one can hear you under the bodies of the rest of your team. So tell me,” he twists Chanyeol’s neck painfully, so the tendons are straining under the skin. “Where it is.”

“I don’t know!” Chanyeol wheezes, blinking tears out of his eyes. “I shot him, but there was no poison, I swear! It was a regular .45!”

“Why’d you shoot?” Mark hisses, pulling harder, this close to snapping his neck. “Thought you’d be able to get away with breaking the treaty? Thought your company would save you?”

“I didn’t know it was him!” Blood splatters from Chanyeol’s lips and nose, speckling the pale skin of Mark’s face. “I swear, they gave me the job to stand guard and I took it, that’s all!”

“Outside of contract?” Mark cuts through. “That’s why both of you didn’t know?”

Chanyeol doesn’t say a word, knowing he’s just broken Junmyeon’s number one rule.

“I’m going to summarise,” Mark’s voice is deceptively calm. “You took a guard job that your company didn’t know about. Someone got in. You shot them, but the bullets weren’t poisoned. They got away.”

The other man nods once, after hesitating, knowing the weight of this admission. “That’s it, I swear.”

There’s a tense, wound pause after that, crackling with tension. Then-…

“You don’t have to swear,” Someone’s voice crackles over a speaker. “We’re not the ones going to be in trouble if SM ever hears one of their employees was moonlighting.”

The man on the ground lets out a haggard breath, eyes wide with realisation as Mark gets up.

He doesn’t need his hands around Chanyeol’s throat to threaten him anymore.

The redhead slides the .45 from Chanyeol’s holster, tucking it into his own belt, before dusting himself off nonchalantly, twisting the near invisible collar mic closer. “You got all that?”

“Recorded, crystal clear. Report back,” The same voice says, and Chanyeol bites down the pain as he rolls over, head pounding.

“You’re not going to tell them,” he rasps, blood spattering onto the grass.

“I won’t have to, if you don’t,” Mark replies, without turning around, as he walks off, hands in his pockets, like nothing had ever happened. “No hard feelings. Like I said,” he pauses to inhale a little here, as if to steady his voice. “This would’ve been a lot easier if you’d just owned up in the first place.”

Chanyeol’s left sprawled on the pavement, breathing harsh and eyes wide.

*

Mark holds it together for the three corners he turns and the street he crosses, hands in his pockets, hood pulled low over his head, before he turns into an alley.

Someone pounces, dragging him into a hug immediately, and Mark cracks a weak smile at Youngjae, who’s staring at him anxiously. “So we got it?”

“Yeah, we got everything- it might not work in a legal battle, but I don’t think Chanyeol will wanna take the chance,” Yugyeom’s watching him carefully and trying not to show it, from a safe distance away. “SM’s never been happy about employees working outside of contract. He won’t say a thing.”

“What about you?” Youngjae’s still looking at Mark, eyes wide with concern. “You-…you’re okay, then?”

Mark shrugs, looking anywhere but up. “Yeah. When was I ever not.”

Jaebum clears his throat, and Youngjae steps aside automatically as the leader walks over, and Mark noticeably does not meet his eyes.

There’s a moment of quiet tension- Mark doesn’t look up, Jaebum doesn’t speak, and the leader’s the one to break the silence, as usual.

“Your freelancing days with Jackson are over,” he says quietly. “It’s all of us now. So stop thinking you have to handle it on your own. Not when you’ve got the five of us here. Understood?”

Mark nods once, eyes still on the ground. The rest of them wait a heartbeat more, before Bambam steps up and nudges him with his shoulder hopefully, before laughing in the way only Bambam can to defuse the tension.

Youngjae wraps him up in a hug again, beaming at Mark. “Thanks for listening to Jinyoung-hyung when he called.”

“No thanks, for burning my hand,” Bambam retorts, brandishing his palm, barely reddened now, and Mark rolls his eyes, giving the appendage a consolation pat.

“This doesn’t give us any leads, though,” Yugyeom says from his seat on a stack of old wooden crates, slightly dejected. “We still don’t know what the poison is, or where to find the antidote.”

“We’ve got the weapon, though,” Jaebum nods towards the gun on Mark’s hip. “The firm could’ve issued Chanyeol poisoned bullets without his knowledge- you never know what happens outside of contract. That was pretty sharp of you, by the way,” he turns to Youngjae. “Deducing that Chanyeol was moonlighting.”

“It wasn’t that hard, after I got more time to analyse how he reacted after the shooting,” Youngjae shrugs, flushing a little. “There’s no way a contract job would’ve had both parties unaware of who else was in the building.”

“We’re getting this analysed, then?” Mark plucks the gun from his belt, dropping it into the ziplock bag Yugyeom had just handed him. “Shouldn’t we be heading back to Daegu?”

Jaebum scoffs. “And wait three days for them to be done? You heard Jinyoung- by now, Jackson’s got about 48 hours left, there’s no time. Pack up,” he nods to Youngjae and Yugyeom, taking out his phone and grumbling something in a significantly lower tone.

“We’re heading for the Seoul base.”

*

One would imagine the Seoul base to be an upgraded version of the Daegu base, but upon actually visiting both bases, would realise that the Daegu base is nothing like the Seoul base.

It’s everything one would expect of the Academy, and the Daegu base is simply just not.

They’re technically not supposed to operate here unless given clearance, but Jaebum didn’t stock up on all those contacts with the higher ups for nothing. By hook or by crook, they’re going to get this gun analysed here, because waiting for the overworked lab assistants to get through it back at base would take too long.

Of course, if Jackson were here, he’d be the one in charge of breaking the ice, sweet-talking their way into getting access to the facilities and experts, but he’s not. And if they don’t finish this fast, he might not ever be again.

They disperse as per normal, before filing one by one into the narrow alleyway beside the company building, under the PARK CONSTRUCTION AND WORKS LTD signboard. Jaebum counts the bricks at the back of his mind, until he smoothly turns, walking straight into the wall and out the other side of the holographic wall, steeling himself for what’s to come.

He’s never quite liked the long, narrow corridor that follows, pitch black with darkness so it feels like you’re walking into a void. The walls are cold if you happen to brush into them, and emit soft hisses, and the floor sinks in a little with every step, like it’s threatening to swallow you alive. Sharp, almost invisible lights flash out across the space, scanning him as he walks through, and Jaebum swallows, shaking any irrational fears out of his head.

As confidently as he can, he reaches the end, noting that he hasn’t been shot with any incapacitating darts yet, and it seems to take forever, as he waits, for the door to unlatch with a smooth click.

Jaebum steps out, gulping down a deep breath of normal-tasting air. Small spaces don’t do him well.

Mark’s already out next to him, Youngjae on his other side, and Yugyeom’s opening his door three spaces away, slightly pale.

“Jae, you got any old friends you kept in contact with down at the labs?” the leader says, loud enough so his voice doesn’t crack, dragging their attention back to the matter at hand, as Bambam steps into the room.

“Sure,” Youngjae says, pulling out his phone, before grinning like a Cheshire cat, then, all of a sudden, looking over at Yugyeom. “But I’m pretty sure Gyeom has a sure winner.”

Yugyeom looks confused for a moment, still recovering from the corridor, before he groans.

“No, I don’t,” he mumbles. The group converges automatically after Jaebum, as he steps up to the only opening in the room other than the many doors behind them- a glowing blue rectangular-shaped depression in the wall, opposite the doors. The leader grudgingly sticks his fist into the opening, and the rest follow suit, Yugyeom still frowning tiredly at Youngjae.

With another slick hiss, bright blue bands tattoo themselves around their wrists, each with their name, unit and designation.

“You know I couldn’t believe Daegu base gave its visitors wristbands when I first went over,” Youngjae says, sounding a little disgusted, as the blue rectangle shapeshifts, the light perimeter expanding into a proper door, and a handle glows where the original rectangle used to be. “Standards.”

“Wait, you didn’t say who,” Bambam squints as they exit the room into a bustling, glowing atrium, Jaebum tapping out messages to a couple of contacts on his phone. The staff they pass by pay them no attention- everyone’s rushing from one place to another, talking into radios or with each other.

“Well, they haven’t spoken in a couple years or so but I doubt she’s ever forgetting him,” Youngjae sniggers, though Yugyeom’s turning steadily redder with every word.

“If you know her just contact her already,” Mark mutters, looking slightly uncomfortable about being in the Seoul building, hands shoved into his pockets. He almost jumps as an unmanned hover-trolley skims by, grazing his calves and beeping angrily at him for being in its way.

“Yeah, she’ll probably be able to get us access to the labs,” Youngjae carries on seamlessly. “That is, if you ask nicely, like you did all those years back-…”

“Stop it, damnnit,” Yugyeom snaps. “Look, she probably doesn’t even remember me.”

“Who’s she?” Bambam demands. “Gyeom, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.”

“It’s not something he’s particularly proud of,” Youngjae informs gravely, while Yugyeom determinedly avoids everyone’s eyes. “The gist of it is, during your basic field training, when you all were rookies in Unit 7 and I wasn’t yet unfortunately fated to be with you, he asked-…”

“Hey…?”

Jaebum looks up, and has to hold himself back from letting out too loud a relieved sigh.

“Yerin, thank goodness,” he points back to the rest of them as he steps up to the girl, now looking a little confused, vaguely aware that Youngjae’s trying not to laugh, Mark looks uncomfortable as hell, Bambam’s glancing around suspiciously and Yugyeom’s trying to disintegrate into the floor. “We need your help.”

“Uh, sure,” Yerin throws a sideways glance at a passing senior, before gesturing quickly for them to follow. “You guys know you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Yeah, yeah we know, but it’s serious this time,” Jaebum says.

“It’s about Jackson,” Mark finally speaks up, a little on edge, and Yerin frowns.

“What’s wrong?”

“He got taken down by another agent a couple days back. Poison,” Jaebum lifts the baggie with the gun subtly from his bag. “We just got the weapon- we need to find out what poison it was on the bullet.”

Yerin studies the bag for a moment, before sighing and nodding towards the end of the corridor, where the service stairs are. “It shouldn’t take long. C’mon, it’s this way down to Toxicology,” they file past, disappearing down the relatively empty corridor.

After a few moments, though, Jaebum sees Yerin fall back a bit, and hears a quiet: “hey Yugyeom.”

Yugyeom clears his throat, but his voice stills cracks anyway. “H-hey Yerin.”

There’s the sound of Bambam crashing into something, probably a potted plant, and Youngjae sniggering around his knuckles, and Jaebum makes a small exasperated noise through one nostril.

This is going to be a long visit.

a/n: chapter pacing's getting a little weird due to poor planning and running out of luck on my part sobs, im sorry abt how long this took to go up. thank you for all your comments so far, they really give me strength to continue writing! hope you all liked this chapter (much action!! such wow!!), comments will be well and truly appreciated! ^.^

as for the spy au drabbles, i'm possibly doing some on maknae line and a youngjae-centric one, based on requests? but those are still in planning cries. there's a jingyeom one that's almost finished, though, hope you all enjoy that one! story can be found here ^.^ 

once again, comments will be really appreciated hehe \o/ reqs and headcanons too!! i loved reading all the ones you guys have commented with so far! thank you and hope to hear from you guys soon! :)

(also if any singapore ahgases are going for the concert today ^.^ see you outside hehe!)