Chapter Text
Corbeau did not fall in love.
He acquired assets. He secured alliances. He cultivated loyalty in the places it was most efficient and extinguished it where it became a liability. Love was a story people told themselves to justify poor risk management.
At least that was the explanation he repeated to himself when he woke up with her knee pressed against his thigh and her hand fisted in his shirt like she thought he might disappear in the middle of the night.
It had been over a year now.
The arrangement should have settled into something neat by now. Ledger balanced. Lines clear. She got safety, power, resources. He got a partner whose presence smoothed more rooms than it complicated. A queen beside the king. Symmetry.
Simple.
Except she was asleep in his bed, wearing one of his shirts with nothing underneath. Her hair was a mess against his pillow, Scout was snoring quietly in a curled yellow ball against her hip, and his chest kept doing something funny he didn’t fully understand.
Simple was not a word that applied to any of this anymore.
Corbeau lay still, staring at the ceiling, Scout’s soft, crackling little snores punctuating the quiet. Morning light leaked around the edges of the blackout curtains, turning the room a muted gray-blue. His arm was pinned under her, hand resting along the curve of her waist where it had apparently decided to stop being under his direct command sometime in the night.
He should move.
He didn’t.
Every time he even thought about shifting away, Scout’s tail twitched, sending a faint static prickle along the sheets. The little dog had grown in the last year, all sturdy legs and bright, idiot devotion, but she still slept like the day Corbeau had brought her home. Fully committed, all in, nose pressed to the person she’d decided was hers.
It had been a strategic decision, at the time. That was what Corbeau had told himself when Philippe had brought it up. Get her a partner that answered only to her, something small enough that the Syndicate wouldn’t flinch at the sight of it but strong enough to matter if things went sideways.
A Galarian import. Good bloodline. Reliable temperament. Evolved into something that could keep pace with the rest of the team, eventually.
He hadn’t accounted for the way she’d lit up when the ball opened and a little yellow blur skidded across the floor straight into her knees. He hadn’t accounted for how quickly “asset” had shifted into “we’re keeping her on the bed tonight because she had a long day” and “she likes this kind of treat best” and “she listens to me now, did you see that, did you see.”
He’d never been so proud of her at that moment. His chest still felt warm at just the memory.
Corbeau shut his eyes briefly.
No. It was not love.
Pattern recognition.
There was a difference.
He eased his hand away from her waist, careful not to wake her, and extricated his arm from under her head with a slow, practiced motion that wouldn’t disturb man nor beast. She stirred once, making a small, unconscious sound in her throat—a soft, contented hum—and then rolled toward the warm space he’d left behind.
Scout sighed, kicked once, and resumed snoring.
Corbeau swung his legs off the bed and stood, the cool air against his skin a sharp contrast to the heat he’d just been pressed into. He pulled on the discarded shirt from the chair, buttoning it as he crossed to the window and drew the curtains back a fraction.
Lumiose City stretched out below, the early hour softening the edges of its usual chaos. Delivery trucks. Street vendors. The first wave of people who couldn’t afford to sleep past dawn. His city. His territory.
The phone on his nightstand buzzed once.
He checked it.
Philippe:
Glass Street boys tested the west docks again at 03:17.
Minor. We handled it.
You have a 09:00 with the south quarter captains. Don’t be late, it confuses them.
Corbeau’s jaw tightened.
Glass Street. Again.
They’d been sniffing around the edges of his territory for weeks now, testing fences and looking for weak boards. Nothing overt. Nothing he could justify turning into an example without looking like a man overreacting to shadows.
Yet.
His thumb hovered over the screen for a moment before he typed back.
Corbeau:
Details at 08:30.
Keep eyes on their runners. No engagement without my order.
Three dots appeared.
Philippe:
Understood. Try not to start a war before breakfast.
He muted the conversation and set the phone down.
Rival movements. Resource shifts. Supply route tests.
Pattern.
He could handle that.
What he was less sure how to handle was the pattern forming in his own damn house.
“Is it already morning?”
Her voice drifted from the bed, still rough with sleep.
Corbeau looked over his shoulder.
She’d pushed herself up on one elbow, hair mussed, Scout now sprawled half on her lap like she thought she was still small enough to fit there. His shirt—on her—had slipped off one shoulder, baring the line of her neck where the rust-colored pendant he’d given her lay against skin.
“Technically,” he said. “You have an hour before the day needs you.”
She groaned and flopped back onto the mattress, one arm thrown over her eyes. “That was a terrible way to say ‘good morning.’”
He let his mouth twitch, just barely. “I didn’t realize I was required to phrase it a certain way.”
“You’re the one always lecturing everyone about messaging,” she mumbled. “Consider your delivery.”
Scout wriggled up her chest to lick her chin. She squeaked, laughing as she tried to fend her off. “No, hey, champ—ugh, your breath, we talked about this.”
Corbeau watched them with the detached focus he used for everything he didn’t quite know how to touch.
There was a time, not very long ago, when she’d woken up stiff and careful in this bed. Shoulders tight. Eyes flicking to him for cues before she moved. Now she was shoving a seventy-percent-butt dog off her face and complaining about her breath.
Progress.
He cleared his throat. “You have that dispute mediation with the east quarter vendors at eleven.”
She stopped wrestling Scout and peeked at him from under her arm. “Are you trying to seduce me with talk of schedule management?”
“It works on you,” he said dryly.
She huffed, amused, and pushed herself upright again, dragging Scout into her lap fully. The dog wagged her tail so hard her whole body shook, sparks crackling faintly in the air.
“Are you coming to the mediation?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I mean, I can handle a few angry produce sellers and some idiots fighting over stall fees.”
“I know you can,” he replied. “But the east quarter still thinks this is my personal hobby project. They’ll take it more seriously if I’m in the room backing your decisions.”
Her brows knit, worried. “So I’m still just the… mouthpiece?”
“No,” Corbeau said, sharper than he intended. Scout’s ears perked, catching the shift. He reined his tone in. “You’re the one they’ll keep dealing with. I’m just there to remind them who made that choice.”
She studied him for a moment, searching for whatever else he wasn’t saying. He let her look. She’d gotten better at reading him in the last year. Too good, sometimes.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But I’m leading it.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t jump in unless I fuck something up.”
“You’re not going to fuck something up,” he said, automatic.
She smiled, small but real. “You know what I mean.”
He did.
He inclined his head. “I won’t step in unless you ask.”
That earned him a brighter smile. She leaned down to press her face briefly into Scout’s fur, hiding it. “Then I guess I should get ready.”
She slid off the bed, setting Scout gently on the floor. The dog trotted after her instantly, nails clicking on the hardwood as they disappeared into the bathroom. The door clicked shut. Water started running a moment later.
Corbeau stood alone in the bedroom again, listening to the familiar sounds of his morning, and tried not to wonder when exactly they’d started being “their” mornings instead of just his.
Not that he particularly missed that silence in his life.
He crossed to the closet, pulling out one of his darker suits, checking for weaknesses by habit. Stitching solid. Fabric clean. Nothing that would suggest vulnerability to anyone who knew what to look for.
The tattoos along his arms were mostly hidden once he shrugged his shirt on and buttoned the cuffs. Only a hint of shapes wrapped around his wrists like shadows beneath the fabric.
He caught his reflection in the mirror.
Lines at the corner of his eyes that hadn’t been there five years ago. Hair neat. Eyes intense. Expression flat.
Behind him, on the dresser, sat the small stand she’d insisted on putting up. Three Poké Balls nested neatly side by side. Arbok first, then Scolipede, and finally Scout’s.
Truthfully, Scout’s belonged on her nightstand, but the little idiot always slept in here anyway, so she’d claimed this room as “neutral ground” and put all three together.
He really ought to move it.
He didn’t.
By the time she emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel with her hair damp and skin dewy from the steam, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, scrolling through overnight reports on his phone.
She padded over to the closet, humming absently under her breath, and slid the door open. The side that once held only what he’d chosen now had a growing section that was distinctly hers.
Softer fabrics, a few bolder pieces she’d picked herself, the black dress from the night he’d finally, reluctantly, let her walk into the world on her own terms.
“I was thinking the navy jumpsuit,” she said, half to herself. “Or is that too, I don’t know, corporate for yelling about tomato fees?”
“Wear what makes you feel like you can walk into the room and make them sit down,” Corbeau said without looking up.
“So the dress,” she said, amused.
He pictured it, the way it framed her, the way other men had looked the last time she’d worn it. His grip on the phone tightened.
“You can,” he said evenly. “If you want.”
She laughed and reached for the more practical option. “Relax. I’m not going to threaten the economic stability of the east quarter with my thighs.”
“That’s an underestimation,” he said before he could stop himself.
She froze, towel halfway to the laundry basket, and turned slowly.
“Did you just say my thighs are a destabilizing force?” she asked, eyes gleaming.
He returned to his phone as if the reports on Glass Street were suddenly the most riveting reading in the world. “I said they’re persuasive.”
“Wow,” she said. “Stop, I’m blushing.”
He did not look up.
Scout, traitor that she was, trotted over to nudge her calf like she agreed.
She let out a laugh, looking down at the dog. “Don’t encourage him. His ego doesn’t need it.”
“Mmmm. True. It’s doing just fine on its own,” Corbeau said.
“You would know,” she muttered.
He pretended not to hear that.
She turned back to the closet, flipping through hangers with more focus now. The towel slipped a little lower on her hips as she reached up and, of course, that was the exact moment his self-control decided to notice the rest of the room.
Damp skin. Bare legs. His shirt still a mess on the bed where she’d left it. The faint steam spilling from the bathroom. Her reflection in the closet mirror, soft and unguarded in a way no one outside these walls ever saw.
His heart twisted again.
No it wasn’t. Not love.
Just… stimulus.
Yeah. He could manage stimulus.
Scout hopped back onto the bed and flopped on her side in the warm spot where her human had been, tail thumping lazily. Sparks fizzed once, then settled. Fully relaxed. No threat.
His body apparently took that as permission to think about other kinds of threat. Like the sight of her half dressed, and the dangerous amount of blood he was losing to his damn dick.
“Stop staring at my back and pick a tie,” she said, not looking at him.
“I’m not—”
She glanced at him in the mirror, one brow arched. “You are. It’s fine. I’m very hot.”
That dragged the corner of his mouth up before he could stop it. “Modesty has always been your strongest quality.”
“Right after patience,” she said lightly, then made a small noise of triumph and pulled the navy jumpsuit off its hanger. “Okay. This one.”
She laid it on the bed beside him, then turned, fingers hooking in the edge of her towel. He looked away out of habit more than necessity, attention skimming to his phone, to the open report, to anything that wasn’t the sound of fabric hitting the floor.
“Are you actually trying to be respectful,” she asked dryly, “or just torturing yourself for fun?”
“Time,” he said, because that at least was true. “We have a schedule.”
“You have a schedule,” she corrected. “I have an hour before tomatoes become a life-or-death issue.”
He made the mistake of glancing back.
She was halfway into the jumpsuit, arms threaded through but the zipper still low, neckline gaping just enough to show the line of her collarbones, the curve of breast, the place his mouth had been last night.
His jaw locked.
She caught it. Of course she did.
“Oh,” she said, slow and pleased. “There it is.”
“There what is,” he asked, even though he knew.
“The face,” she said, stepping closer. “The one you get when you’re trying very hard to pretend you’re thinking about logistics and not about what’s directly in front of you.”
He said nothing.
She stopped between his knees, zipper still undone, the fabric framing her like a deliberate problem. One of her hands slid into his hair at the nape of his neck, fingers skimming gently. The other braced lightly on his shoulder.
“Good morning,” she said, softer now.
It wasn’t the words. It was the way she said them. Like the greeting itself was private, something that belonged here and nowhere else.
He tilted his head back to look at her properly. Up close, he could see the faint smudge of sleep still at the corner of one eye, the damp curl of hair at her temple, the little crease she got between her brows when she was working up to asking for something.
“We’re going to be late,” he said, because someone had to.
“We’re never late,” she countered. “You pad every schedule by twelve minutes in case of emergencies. Philippe told me.”
Of course he had.
“That buffer is for operational failures,” Corbeau said. “Not—”
“Us fucking before work?” she supplied cheerfully.
Scout snorted on the bed like she’d heard that one before.
He quickly gave the dog a flat look. “Out.”
Scout’s ears twitched. She pretended deafness.
He narrowed his eyes. “Scout.”
That at least got a begrudging huff. She slid off the mattress with all the melodrama a ten-kilo electric type could muster and trotted to the door, pausing only to look back once at her human with a wounded expression.
“I’ll give you half my toast,” she promised. “Go.”
Scout sighed, actually sighed, and padded out into the hall.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Silence fell, thick and suddenly very loud.
Corbeau’s gaze stayed on her. “You didn’t even have to move,” he said quietly. “Terrifying.”
Her mouth curved, slow and pleased.
“Effective,” she corrected, and tugged lightly on his collar, drawing him closer. The undone zipper gaped another inch, heat spilling out of the narrow V of her chest.
“Tell me no,” she said quietly. “If you want to. If you actually care about being perfectly on time this morning.”
He could picture it, if he tried. Standing up, straightening his cuffs, letting her finish dressing without interruption. They would eat quickly. They would leave the house with comfortable distance between them, talk about stall fees and Glass Street like two well-oiled parts of a machine.
Order. Efficiency. Control.
But for some reason…his hands found her hips instead.
Her eyes warmed like she’d known they would.
“We’ll be ten minutes behind,” he said, voice low.
“You’ll survive,” she said.
He wasn’t sure he would, actually.
He slid his palms up over her waist, fingers spanning the bare strip of skin between towel and fabric before either was fully settled. The little hitch in her breath when his thumbs brushed the sensitive dip at her sides hit him harder than any gunshot he’d taken.
She leaned in, mouth hovering a whisper from his. “You’re thinking a lot for someone who’s supposed to be kissing me,” she murmured.
He answered by closing the distance.
The first kiss of the day was always different. Slower. Less of the sharp, hungry edge that came with arguments and late nights and adrenaline. More… grounding. She tasted like sleep and faint mint, like shared air and something he refused to call home.
Her fingers tightened in his hair. The undone zipper pressed cool metal against his chest through his shirt as she leaned closer, the half-on jumpsuit gaping enough that he could feel the heat of her all along his front.
He drew back a fraction, breathing against her lips. “We don’t have time for complicated,” he said.
She smiled, small and smug. “Who said anything about complicated? You’re very efficient, remember?”
He should have felt insulted.
He didn’t.
“Turn around,” he said.
Her brows lifted. “Yes, boss.”
The title hit a part of him that had nothing to do with the Syndicate. He let it settle, then tapped her hip lightly in emphasis.
She turned, back to him now, jumpsuit still hanging mostly open. The line of her spine was a clean, vulnerable curve, damp hair clinging in places. She watched him over her shoulder, eyes half-lidded, waiting.
He stood, close enough that his chest brushed her shoulders, and reached for the zipper.
He could just pull it up and be done.
He didn’t.
His knuckles grazed along the warm skin of her back, tracing the path the metal would take. She shivered under the touch, body swaying back toward his almost imperceptibly.
“Corbeau,” she said, annoyance and want tangled up in the name.
“Impatient,” he murmured
.
“You started this,” she reminded him.
Fair point.
He bent, mouth finding the damp curve where her neck met her shoulder, teeth scraping lightly just enough to make her suck in a breath. His hands slid around to her front instead of the zipper, splaying over her stomach, thumbs stroking slow arcs against her skin.
She relaxed back into him without thinking, head tipping to the side to give him more room. He felt the trust in that movement like a physical thing.
Not love, he told himself.
His grip tightened.
He guided her a step forward until her palms met the cool surface of the closet door, braced there. She laughed under her breath, breath fogging the mirror.
“Very efficient,” she said again, voice a little rougher now.
“You have a meeting,” he said. “I’m helping you get it out of your system.”
“Oh,” she said. “Is that what this is? Community service?”
“Something like that.”
Her shoulders shook in a soundless laugh.
He didn’t drag it out. Not this time. There were mornings for long, drawn-out indulgence, for stripping the world away layer by layer. This wasn’t one of them. This was quick, familiar, sharpened by the knowledge that every second they stole here cut into the version of his day where he was untouchable.
He preferred this one.
Minutes later, she was biting down on her lower lip to hold back a sound that would’ve echoed down the hall, fingers digging into the closet door hard enough to leave faint prints. His name broke on her tongue anyway, quiet and punched out of her in a way that made his own control unravel in response.
When it was done, she slumped back against him, breathing hard, forehead resting against the mirror. Her hand found his at her waist and laced their fingers together, squeezing once.
“You,” she said, when she could talk again, “are very bad for punctuality.”
He pressed his mouth to the back of her shoulder, just for a second, the gesture quicker and more reverent than he meant it to be. “We’re on schedule,” he said. “More or less.”
She huffed. “You’re going to text Philippe and have him stall if we’re even three minutes behind, aren’t you.”
“He’s very good at improvising,” Corbeau said.
She turned in his arms then, jumpsuit still half-open, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. She looked at him for a long moment, something soft and dangerous in her expression.
“What,” he asked.
She shook her head, smile tilting. “Nothing. Just… you’re different in the mornings.”
“Less tolerable?” he suggested.
“Less guarded,” she corrected. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. It’d ruin your reputation.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly.
She rose on her toes and kissed him once more, quick and warm. “Okay. Now we are going to actually be late if I don’t put clothes on in the next ten seconds.”
“Then put clothes on,” he said, stepping back.
“I would,” she said, looking pointedly down at the way his hands were still at her waist, “if someone would stop touching me.”
He lifted them in surrender.
She finished zipping the jumpsuit, the clean line of it snapping her back into the version of herself the Syndicate saw. Sharp, composed, impossible to read. Only the faint mark blooming at the side of her throat betrayed anything else.
He watched her catch sight of it in the mirror and debate for half a second whether to cover it.
She didn’t.
Good.
Scout scratched at the door, finally out of patience. A sharp bark, then another.
“Drama queen,” she muttered, crossing the room to let the dog back in.
Scout barreled past her to shove her nose into Corbeau’s hand, apparently checking that he’d survived the last ten minutes. Sparks fizzed harmlessly along his fingers.
“I’m fine,” he told the dog. “Go harass your actual trainer.”
Scout spun back to her human, tail wagging as if to say: I heard trainer,’ I’m choosing to interpret that as ‘favorite.’
She laughed, grabbing her bag. “Come on, champ. Let’s go stop a price-gouging scandal before lunch.”
Corbeau picked up his jacket, slipping his phone into the inner pocket, mask sliding neatly back into place over the parts of him that had no business leaving this apartment.
Asset management.
Alliance structures.
Risk mitigation.
He watched her clip Scout’s Poké Ball to her belt next to her others, watched the way she adjusted the strap on her bag, the way she checked she had what she needed without looking to him for confirmation.
Not love.
Just a pattern.
But…one he was increasingly unwilling to lose.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She glanced back at him over her shoulder, smile quick and sharp. “After you, boss.”