Work Text:
Riley quickly scans the labels in the documents, while keeping an eye out for any more unwanted guests arriving in the hotel’s hospital. She feels Desi’s eyes on her, sharp, accusing and distrustful. Riley knows that they need to talk about it. They were supposed to talk about what happened with Codex after the summit meeting in DC, but COVID19 hit so quickly, and the state went into lockdown. Matty suggested establishing lines of contact during the lockdown and starting the conversation, but no-one really wanted it. Things were too tense, wounds too fresh and painful to bring it up.
Still, Riley kept in touch with Mac, Bozer, and to some degree Matty. She had never really gotten close with Russ and Desi, but she had still sent them a short greeting, an invitation to get the conversation started. It had gone unanswered.
Riley wondered if they had kept in touch with Mac, at least. She remembers the way that Desi had avoided meeting Mac’s eyes, or even looking at him and reconsiders. And there was no doubt that Mac and Russ were currently poorly sorting out their issues on the job, like all professional Pheonix agents do.
Riley finishes scanning through the shelf in front of her and moves on to the next. As she moves, she feels Desi’s eyes on her. Again.
This silence isn’t cutting it. Riley is on an op, and she needs to know if Desi trusts her. She needs to know that Desi will have her back if things go sour. That Desi won’t take the slightest infringement on this mission and blow up.
Out of the corner of her eye, Riley sees Desi pull out a file and stare at it. “Here!”
“Perfect!” Riley breathes and follows Desi to the table. They split the folder in two and each begin combing through their respective halves. Riley feels Desi’s eyes on her, again. This is the third time in the past ten minutes. Enough is enough. “So, are we good?”
“Uh-huh.” Comes Desi’s reply.
Riley barely needs her snort of disbelief silent. So now Desi wants to avoid looking at Riley. Real smooth.
“Really? Because you’ve been extra mono-symbolic. Even for you.” Riley doesn’t want to call Desi out on the staring issue just yet. One, it’s hard to prove, and Desi is one of the most stubborn people Riley has ever worked with. Second, Riley has a good feeling that both the staring and the ultra short answers stem from the same source.
“Huh?” Desi turns away from the file and looks at Riley in false confusion.
Riley wants to shake her. Instead, she takes the diplomatic approach and holds up her hands as if presenting. “See what I’m talking about?”
Riley can practically see the walls go up around the existing walls in Desi’s eyes. Yeah, no that won’t do. She needs to really talk with Desi if there’s any hope of repairing the Phoenix team.
Riley goes to respond, but then they’re interrupted by the job. She sighs, and quietly follows Desi to the door to deal with whatever complication came up.
~~~
Riley listens to Desi talk about ‘she trusted Salazar, opened up and thought she found her family.’ She hears the pain in Desi’s voice when she says that ‘he double crossed her and left her for dead.’ Part of Riley is glad because as indirect as this is, she’s finally getting a look into Desi’s mind.
The other part of her wants to scream in frustration. Desi makes it sound so, so painfully simple when the situation between her, Mac and Codex was anything but simple.
But this isn’t the time to talk about Mac and codex. Riley convinces Paula to drop the gun and promises to bring her to the basement. Paula and Desi follow.
~~~
Riley reaches the basement without setting off any alarms or meeting any guards, thankfully. Paula chooses to stay at the entrance, looking out for any guards, while Desi follows Riley to the vault.
The vault will take a few minutes to pick. By now, the motions are familiar. Riley could probably pick it with her eyes closed while singing, “Confident.” The point is, they have a few minutes, and some - while limited - privacy.
From their conversation before, and Desi’s show for Paula, Riley knows that Desi’s walls are sky high. If they’re going to have this talk, Riley needs them to lower, at least a little. She decides to start off with a compliment. “Good job back there, getting her to come with us.”
Desi nods and looks away. Riley winces; it looks like Desi even dropped the mono-symbolic answers. Riley has her work cut out for her.
“But that speech about opening up and family?” At the word family, Riley feels Desi’s eyes on her. She turns to meet them, and Desi turns away. It’s almost like a game of cat and mouse. Desi glances, Riley looks, talks and Desi scatters.
Riley sighs. There’s no use getting annoyed. She needs to fix this. “Come on, Dez. Talk to me.”
To her surprise, Desi finally starts talking. “When Mac gassed me,” Riley internally winces. Straight to the point. “... and Taylor and went to join Codex you charged after him - why?”
The answer is obvious. “Because I trust Mac.” After Mac recruited her, it took her a few missions before she was able to trust Mac. But since she’s made that decision, she has never regretted it. Mac is… good and moral in the way that few people are in their line of work. She sees how he cares, intensely and absolutely does not accept solutions that results in people - especially innocents - getting hurt. So yes, of course she trusts Mac. She trusts him with her life. Completely and unconditionally.
The thing is, Riley can see why Desi is asking. During the missions leading up to Mac infiltrating codex (and yes, the word is infiltrating. Mac never joined codex. He never prescribed to their beliefs that billions had to die to save a few thousand), Riley watched as the relationship between Desi and Mac crumbled.
Riley recalls one of the events that caused one of the larger cracks in their relationship. Mac needed to pretend to be one of the codex agents in order to get the other to give up the location of their base. He needed to act convincingly enough to fool the codex agent into thinking that he believed in their cause, in their mission.
The best liars, the most convincing liars always believe their lies. There’s always a grain of truth hidden inside them, and it’s that grain of truth that allows the liar to calm the symptoms, the ticks that reveal the lies.
Riley knew that’s what Mac needed to do. Riley knew how much was riding on that mission, and she knew the type of person that Mac was. She knew that he would do everything in his power to find that grain of truth, hold onto it and fool the codex agent.
She knew it would succeed, and he did. Unfortunately, he succeeded too well. He fooled their lie detecting system (of course it would; there was a small grain of truth) which in turn fooled Russ and Desi who had both somehow forgotten the number one rule of successful undercover work: a grain of truth. A small grain.
Then again, perhaps the question isn’t, why did they start doubting Mac and more along the lines of did they ever really trust him, in the first place?
Riley turns to Desi. “The question is, why didn’t you?”
“Maybe I would have if you’d asked me.” Desi responds, lightning fast.
“Ah.” So that’s the path that Desi wants to take. Okay then. Riley turns back to the vault and takes a breath. She’s almost done picking the lock. She will not lose her temper in this operation.
“But you didn’t let me in on the plan, and you just bailed.” Desi snaps.
The lock gives a final click and opens. Riley yanks the door open, a bit of anger fueling her motions. She grabs the little package, shoves it in her pocket and turns to Desi. “And you think I knew the plan?”
Desi gapes at Riley for a moment, her mouth open and eyes wide in confusion.
“When I left the Phoenix and tracked Mac down to the storage where he was stealing Tesla’s device with Scarlett - the codex agent - do you really think I knew, definitively what Mac was doing?”
Desi’s eyes narrow. “If you thought Mac was joining codex, why did you -”
“Because I trust him!” Riley explodes. Behind them, Riley sees Paula cautiously glances inside the room. Riley lowers her voice. “I trust Mac. I know Mac. He’s a good person. Is that so hard to believe?”
Desi scowls and looks away.
Riley jerks back surprised. “You’re dating Mac - at least you were - and you didn’t even trust him?”
“It’s not that easy!” Desi tries to defend herself. “Mac he’s… he gets in my head, okay? He tells me that he’s on my side, that I can trust him. And then when we go out on ops, he tells the codex agents the same exact things. And I can’t spot the lie! How am I supposed to trust him when I can’t spot the difference?!”
Riley stares at Desi, hardly hearing her words. “That’s not what trust is, Desi. Trust isn’t something that’s proven, like a scientific test. It isn’t black or while. Trust isn’t looking at Mac’s - someone’s - behaviour and saying, ‘here, look. It’s obvious he’s telling the truth so I can trust him!’”
Desi snorts and looks at Riley in disbelief.
Riley continues, struggling to keep the emotion out of her voice. “Trust is a choice. It’s your belief in someone. It can’t ultimately be proven. It’s never guaranteed. It’s your ability to put aside your doubts and worries, and believe deep inside that the other person has your back. That they’ll always come true when you need them.”
Desi does the last thing Riley expects. She laughs. It is a full, body laugh that has Desi throwing her head back and holding onto the other vaults for stability. After a few moments she looks at Riley. “You-you really think that?”
Maybe it’s the dark, slightly angry look in Riley’s eye, or the way that Riley’s hand is tightening on the vault drawer but something stops Desi’s manic laughter. “You really do think that. You believe in that fairytale.”
“It’s not a fairytale.” Riley tries her best to keep her snarl out of her words. And judging by the look on Desi’s face she didn’t succeed. Part of her doesn’t care. This conversation is revealing part of Desi that Riley never knew. Parts of Desi that Riley is slowly becoming aware of. Riley isn’t liking what she finds.
Part of her wishes that she could take this whole conversation back and go on in innocent bliss, but a larger, grander part of her is horrified and needs to know how far this extends. It’s already clear that Desi never trusted Mac, or her. Hell, the way Desi is talking about trust being a fairytale leads Riley to believe that Desi’s not capable of trust.
And in this line of work, that’s not okay.
Riley isn’t comfortable with someone who isn’t capable of trust having her back. Desi’s version of trust extends to being able to read someone. And the moment she can’t read them, she turns her back on them and shuns them out.
Just like she did with Mac.
And she nearly dropped a bomb on Mac.
Oh gosh, Mac. A cold shiver washes over Riley and she’s barely able to resist showing it. A wave of intense concern and protectiveness washes over her. Mac.
Healthy relationships are built on communication and trust. From what Riley has seen of Desi, she has neither. Riley remembers seeing Desi and Mac’s fights in the hallways of the Phoenix. Both of them furious, Desi snarling distrust at Mac and Mac defending his actions, his job roles. At the time, she had assumed that they went home together, talked it over and came to some sort of understanding.
How wrong she was.
Looking at Desi now, seeing the person she is and how she clams up until the pressure is too great and then explodes in furious, wild screams and arguments, Riley knows that the arguing she saw between Mac and Desi in the phoenix was the most they communicated. She knows that when they went home - if they even went home together - Desi would’ve clammed up and refused to talk to Mac. She would’ve shut down Mac’s every attempt to talk. She should’ve given Mac the silent, mono-symbolic treatment that she had given Riley earlier that hour.
As Riley comes to conclusions about Desi and Mac’s relationship, a distressing image comes to mind. It’s a scary image, one that sends ice through Riley’s veins.
Contrary to most’s beliefs, there are many types of abuse. The most easy to spot is physical abuse. Other types, such as mental, psychological and emotional are harder to spot, and are no less damaging. When Riley first joined the Phoenix, the director at the time, Thornton, had her sit in a few seminars about conduct, consent and communication. They had gone over what behaviour was unacceptable at the Phoenix, what was considered abuse (neglect, wearing away at one’s sense of mental well being, angry and unpredictable outbursts) and how to handle the situation, should it arise.
Desi’s nature and the way she treats Mac is slowly but surely starting to sound familiar. At the time, Riley had dismissed the seminar thinking that she wouldn’t let anyone - Jack included - close enough to give them the advantage to hurt her so. She didn’t think she’d get close enough to anyone to care whether they were being abused, other than simply reporting it to the right sources.
She didn’t think the Phoenix agents would become her family.
Now one of her family members is being abused, by one she had assumed to be family.
“Can we get going?” Riley nearly jumps out of her skin as she instinctively turns towards the voice. It’s Paula. She’s peering around the doorway, looking between the agents. “I can hear footsteps. I don’t think they’re coming here but…”
“... it’s best we get moving. Yeah.” Riley closes her eyes for a moment. Part of her is insanely worried about Mac and the other is full of red hot fury at Desi. She swallows both down. There will be time to confront Desi and to help Mac later. First, she needs to complete this op and get Paula to safety.
Under her breath, Riley whispers a prayer, a promise to Mac. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what she was doing to you. But I know now, and I swear I will help you.
Riley opens her eyes as Desi exits the room following Paula. She doesn’t turn around to see if Riley’s following. Riley steels herself and follows. She has a lot to do.
The End.