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It was well past midnight when Nightingale got home. As her hovercraft touched down on the landing pad, she noticed that it had begun to rain, making the light streaming from the penthouse windows swim before her eyes.
She sprang out and, holding her arm above her face to shield her eyes, sprinted for the door. Not even her unnatural speed could carry her fast enough, however, as when she burst through the door, she was saoked to the bone.
"Good evening, Mrs. Brightley." Robin spoke from the sofa, looking up at her from over his tablet.
Nightingale smiled tiredly as she tossed her sodden coat over a hook and kicked off the shoes in which she found several inches of water.
"Michael called, by the way. Says it's urgent. But I wouldn't call him back now, it'll be the early morning in the Britannic Federation," said Robin, referring to Michael's place of work. He'd immigrated there a few years back, to work in a prestigious research lab.
"But it's urgent?" said Nightingale.
"Not really that urgent. He was excited, more than anything. Besides, you're home late," he observed, laying aside the tablet.
"David did one of his debriefs from hell. Pierce looked like he wanted to shoot himself the entire time," said Nightingale, reminded of the way Pierce's eyes kept flickering to his gun as she removed her own sidearm from its hidden pocket in her jacket.
Robin eyed it with poorly veiled distaste as he rose from the sofa, coiling and uncoiling his limbs with unnecessary but very attractive grace as he sauntered over to her.
"Why Pierce?" he asked.
"In David's mind, Pierce fucked up. Probably because David's unusually miserable these days. It's nothing to do with Pierce, and he can't help that David's a sour old bastard," sniped Nightingale.
"Be charitable, darling." Robin chided Nightingale with such affection that he could scarcely have really meant it. "He's not happy."
"He's never happy."
Robin gave a soft sigh, laying his hand under Nightingale's chin and lifting her eyes to his. "Are you worried about him?"
"Of course not, David's a big boy, he can take care of-" Nightingale was denying any soft feelings she might have for David the moment Robin's query was out of his mouth.
"Liar," said Robin, and his voice was so sweet, his lopsided grin even more enchanting, that Nightingale could not take his quip seriously. "I always know when you're lying. You're very good at it, but not so good as I am at reading you. You're worried about him."
"Hmm," murmured Nightingale, and had her revenge upon Robin for his insightfulness in the way she knew would disarm him most - she kissed him.
"Nightin-" began Robin, when she pulled back to look at him.
She kissed him again, winding her fingers in his hair.
"You're not fair," he said.
"Neither are you," she replied, lifting her hand to his face and, with the softest possible touch, light as a feather, brushed the backs of her fingers over his cheek. She lingered on the small lines around his mouth, testaments to his age. He looked far younger than he was, but parts of him told of the difference in their years. "You're far less fair than I am."
She knew he understood what she meant. Robin always understood.
Shaking her head to dispel the sombre mood, Nightingale glanced around Robin. "Where's Colm?" she asked.
"He's in bed. He's eight years old, Nightingale. I may be an irresponsible parent but I'm not nearly as bad as to let my son go to bed past midnight. Besides, there's an element of petty vengeance in it. I had to go to bed at seven pm when I was his age, so I'll be damned if he's afforded any special privileges," said Robin, a combination of stuffy diction and smiles making his words both serious and mocking.
He meandered over to the sofa and threw himself down on it, landing with a sigh and a flick of his mane of hair.
"I've never gone to bed at seven pm in my whole life," muttered Nightingale.
"Well, there are different rules for us humans," said Robin, laying a long-fingered hand on his heart with one hand and gesturing vaguely in the direction of their son with the other. "I suppose a goddess may go by her own rules."
Twelve years of marriage and Robin's ridiculous flattery never ceased to make Nightingale smile.
"Or the rules set for her by her pimp," she amended.
Robin's smile was very sad now, but very sweet. His mouth quirked, the gaiety of the expression not making it as far as those wide, dark eyes.
"I think I'll go say goodnight to him," said Nightingale.
"Don't wake him up," protested Robin.
"I barely see my own son. I'd like to spend just a little bit of time with him," said Nightingale, thinking of the countless hours Colm and Robin spent together, trying not to have that pleasant thought soured by the bitter tang of jealousy.
"If you quit the force you could see him whenever you wanted," Robin pointed out. His voice was careful and measured, the teasing gone completely out of it. "You've done your ten years, Agent Brightley. You owe nothing else."
"I have to work for a living, Robin, not all of us are so fucking rich that we can-" she snapped.
"No, you don't, Nightingale. You know that. Even if you didn't want to take a penny of my money - your money, too, the whole marriage thing means that what is mine is yours - you could make a more than comfortable living some other way," he said. He sprang up from the sofa and in one of his liquid strides was at her side. "You could...write a book or something. Tell the story of your life in a memoir."
"Make myself famous?" said Nightingale. The idea sickened her. Whoring her body out had been bad enough, but to make money off her pain and her loss and her life...
"You're already famous, love. There isn't a person on the Western Continent who doesn't know your name," said Robin.
"But my name, my face, my whole life, for everyone to know? David worked hard enough to keep all of us out of the limelight that to waste it-" began Nightingale.
"David is the one who got you into this mess! The one who press-ganged you into the service. But you don't have to do it anymore," said Robin. His tone was vehement, but not angry. Nightingale had to struggle not to immediately give in to him - with even a shred less self control, she would have given him anything he wanted. "You put your life on the line for a society that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into thinking you were even a person. You could have been killed today, for God's sake! So what am I supposed to tell Colm when he asks one day why his mother didn't come home?"
"Exactly what I'll have to tell him in about thirty years," said Nightingale very quietly.
Robin fell silent so fast it was as though he'd been gagged. He opened his mouth once or twice, no sound coming out. Nightingale had never seen him struck so speechless, yet when she tried to speak, she found herself likewise mute, struck dumb by the tears that tied her throat in a thick knot.
"Nightingale," Robin finally managed. "Oh, oh, don't cry. Is this what's been worrying you?"
"It's been...on my mind," Nightingale confessed. When he paused again, she was on him in an instant, arms about his chest, nails dug as deeply as she could into the coarse tweed of his jacket.
"I will die before you, that's true. But that's the way of the world, part of being human. We're born, we live. And then we die. But all I wanted to tell you was this," he said. He had to fight very hard against Nightingale's strength - and would not have been able to escape had she not let him - as he pulled back and looked down at her. "That you have so much to offer, Nightingale. You're a miracle - so don't resign yourself to serving a public that only loves you now because you're-"
"I don't serve those who hated me. I serve those who freed me. I protect my sisters. I protect Colm. I protect you," said Nightingale.
There was another pause.
Robin's lovely, jocular air had returned when he spoke next, and his voice was tinged with self mockery. "You protect me? That's a bit of a foolish reason to risk your life."
Nightingale quirked a little smile. "Of course it is."
Another few moments passed.
"Did you really not know that's why I do it?" she asked.
"I wasn't sure," he confessed. "It's a strange feeling for me, not knowing that sort of thing. After all, had it not been for my positively eerie abilities in perception, you and I would never have met."
Nightingale smiled, her smirk becoming mischevious as she spoke. "Then I hope you get your powers back very soon," she said. And before he could say another word, she pushed him back onto the sofa and straddled him, pinning him effectively. "There - what am I thinking now?"
He blushed. In all their years of marriage, Robin was still bashful, bodyshy, and utterly charming. Nightingale adored it.
"I think I know. And I think I like it," he said.
She grinned almost wickedly at him. "Well done, Mr. Brightley."