Chapter Text
“Someday that’s going to stop working, and then my son is going to start a pointless war over you,” Dr. Crescent says to Vincent. She knows better than to reach for the swabs and syringes at her elbow, and only shakes her head as she closes out the window on her tablet. “I’ve told Tseng that if we’re going to make saving you from your family a priority, he should put some actual effort into it.”
“What were you expecting him to do, provide me with a security detail so it’s obvious to everyone?” Vincent asks. He advances the next set of photographs for viewing, watching her fingers rather than her face or what’s on her tablet. “My family is in hand.”
Dr. Crescent makes a skeptical noise, but she’s absorbed enough in the evidence to be distracted. “You said that the first time we spoke after Sephiroth was born, and then I nearly lost half my funding to Hojo that quarter, because that mess with your cousin or whichever relative of yours made you late.”
“But you didn’t lose the funding,” Vincent points out. Tone dry and posture unruffled, even though the reference is almost certainly to something no one else in the room is authorized to know about.
Still unimpressed, Dr. Crescent uses her finger to scribble an annotation on one photo. “It’s not as if I don’t notice when my son raids SOLDIER medical supplies, Vincent. You can keep trying to handle it on your own, but you’re not a geneticist. And I don’t think either of us want him wrecking what he’s built for your insanity.”
“I do try to stay sane,” Vincent says, and then, when she gives him a sharp look, all but smiles in her face.
Dr. Crescent gives the photos a last onceover, then pushes herself back in her seat and looks dismissively away from them. She turns towards the large glass window that opens from her office onto the lab outside, her eyes floating from table-top to monitor to hunched subordinate back as if none of it is satisfactory. “Fine. I know better than to pour resources into a bottomless pit. Just remember, Vincent, it’s not as if you haven’t gotten caught out before. You’ve needed the help.”
Compared to all the other things that Dr. Crescent’s said to Vincent since he joined, this seems pretty mild, but for some reason it makes Vincent go still.
He didn’t do anything else, and it’s just for a second. Cissnei’s pretty sure that Dr. Crescent missed it entirely, with how she was frowning at the lab outside, and Cissnei only caught it because…“Well, that thing you said you overheard the guide say, about if you see a monster but you can hear birds and things, it’s still fine, and you only need to worry if everything is dead silent? It was just like that.”
Reno cracks a wide, lazy grin from where he’s flopped on the couch, shoes and socks off and feet propped on the opposite end. “Look at that, couple city kids learning the ways of the urban jungle,” he says as he squints at a gun part; the rest of the gun is disassembled on the table by him. “Can’t say that that trip to the zoo was completely worthless, then.”
“It was still seven hours squatting over that stupid monkey house,” Cissnei mutters. Not the worst assignment ever, but she had to throw away that outfit because she couldn’t get the smell out and usually she doesn’t have to do that when they’re just updating their records on which board member’s having an extramarital affair. “But anyway. Think I should tell Tseng?”
“Tell him what, that Crescent’s finally gotten around to pissing off Valentine?” Reno mutters. Then pushes himself up and reaches over for another gun part, only to stop and shake his head to cut off Cissnei’s reply. “Listen, the guy’s not dumb. He’s not gonna assassinate Crescent just because she made a crack at him.”
“He might because she’s gearing up to make Sephiroth version two in a test tube,” Cissnei has to point out.
“Okay, but one, Tseng definitely knows about that. We all know about it, Cissnei, she’s got a goddamn budget proposal pending for it,” Reno says, rolling his eyes. He slouches back in place on the couch, clicking the two gun parts together and then separating them. “You gotta learn, sometimes the bureaucrats kill things for us.”
“But—”
“Two, if Valentine’s gonna assassinate anybody and he wants Tseng to know, Tseng’s gonna know without us. And he’s dating the General, I’m pretty sure if somebody needs to know if Crescent’s gonna take a dive, it’d be him first, not Tseng,” Reno goes on. He puts the parts back together, frowns at them for a second, and then sighs. Then, in a rapid blur, he flips upright, collects the rest of the parts, and has a fully-assembled gun in the time it takes for Cissnei to decide she might as well throw her lunch trash away and get back to work. “Look, you can tell Tseng if you want. I’ll go with you. I’m just saying, I don’t think we need to stop anything.”
“Because there’s nothing to stop, or because you want Valentine to do it?” Cissnei says.
Reno slides his gun into its holster and then gives her a lazy grin. He’s not nearly as laidback as he looks, she knows, but he does make it easy to think so. “Cissy, that’d mean I’d actually have to pick a side. I just think if you’re gonna go tell Tseng Valentine was scary because Crescent was scary…well, what’s new?”
“I still think Tseng should get a heads-up,” Cissnei says after a moment. But she’s biting her lip, and from the way Reno saunters over to her, he knows he’s convincing her.
“Yeah, well, let him have a nice, peaceful lunch. We’ve gotta spring that shit from Sector Seven last night on him later anyway. Right, Rude?” Reno says, leaning on her so that he can lean out the doorway and see around the corner. When a corresponding groan floats back, Reno cackles. “C’mon, let’s see if we can clean that one up a little before the boss gets to it. Sometimes that’s all you can do, y’know.”
“Yeah, true,” Cissnei sighs as she checks her phone. He’s probably right and she’s overthinking this again.
Even so, she makes sure she can make that meeting with Tseng later. It might be nothing, but she’d rather Tseng know than not.