Chapter Text
In Brazil, anything that could go wrong, does.
Technically, it all started in Moscow, where the leader of the drug empire they took down sold out everyone he’d ever worked with in the first ten minutes of questioning. His wealth of information led them to his brother’s half of the operation in Rio, where the majority of the group’s profits are being kept. It escalates with the fact that Copley wasn’t the only one with the grand idea of sending a team to address the issue - Andy, Nicky, Joe, and Nile had gone in to take out the remaining members and retrieve the money before it was used for who knows what, while the other group’s primary goal was to simply take the stash for themselves.
So instead of one group of mercenaries with guns, they’re left to deal with two.
Andy shouts orders over the noise, ducking against a wall of the compound with Nile at her back. Joe and Nicky take the other side as gunshots ricochet through the space - a firefight much larger than any of them anticipated.
It all comes to a head when the firing stops, when bodies litter the floor and the only life left in the room is emanating from Nile and the three people she came here with.
“Are we clear?” Joe asks, and the sound of his voice after so much gunfire eases some of the tension in Nile’s shoulders.
Andy nods, once, and Nile takes a single step forward. The echo of her boot against the floor is the only noise, and the silence feels uncomfortable, laden with an uncertainty that Nile can’t name. She hears three pairs of footsteps behind her, and as she turns, her eyes catch on a wire snaking across the floor. She remembers how Andy had checked for cameras after their last job, and moves towards it to see what it's connected to and do the same.
With her back turned, she hears more than sees the one remaining member of the two groups’ heavy footsteps as he turns the corner behind her.
She hears more than sees Nicky’s frantic “Andy!” and the scuffle of boots as he dives in front of her
She hears more than sees the six bullets that bury themselves in his chest.
And before she turns and takes a shot of her own, Nile closes her eyes and thanks God that she hears Joe’s anguished scream rather than seeing the look on his face.
Nile hits her target and the man hits the ground. She turns on her heel to find Nicky lying against Andy on the concrete floor with Joe kneeling beside them, pleading in languages that blend together as he stumbles over Nicolò and please and stay with me. Nile doesn’t know what the deaths were like before Andy stopped healing, but she doesn’t think they were anything like this.
Nicky makes an awful, wet choking noise in the back of his throat, and Nile watches the thin stream of blood that trails past the corner of his mouth and drips onto the floor.
He dies.
Joe begs.
Fourteen seconds slowly tick by, and Nicky breathes.
Joe folds over him like everything keeping him upright has instantly dissolved, and Nile breathes a sigh of relief of her own as Andy tips her head back.
“We gotta go,” Andy’s voice is as solid and steady as ever as she helps Nicky sit up. “I’m not waiting around to see if there’s any more of them.”
“The only exit leads out onto the street,” Nile repeats the words Copley had said to them the day before. It hadn’t seemed like an issue then, when they had planned on dealing with much fewer men with guns than there turned out to be.
“We have to change, then,” Andy looks between the four of them, and then shoulders off her backpack. Clean shirts are passed around, the bloody ones stuffed back into the bag, and Nile watches as Joe’s eyes linger nervously on Nicky’s unmarked chest as he slips a clean t-shirt on over his head.
Andy dumps half of a plastic water bottle into her palm and scrubs it over her face. “There’s blood in your hair, Joe,” Nile hears Nicky mumble from behind her as Andy passes her the bottle. She wipes off her own face, grateful that her clothes are somehow blood-free, and fantasizes about the very long, very hot shower she’s going to take later. She turns just in time to catch Nicky’s hands shaking as he pours water over the top of Joe’s head. Joe blinks stray droplets out of his eyes as Nicky apologizes, repeatedly, softly, but Joe simply shakes his head and brings Nicky’s hand to his lips.
Nile doesn’t think Nicky even notices that Joe’s hands are shaking too.
“Everyone ready?” Nile asks. She gets three nods in return, and then she’s leading them through the dingy hallway, guided by the fuzzy map on the screen of her phone. They pile onto the street and out into the midday heat, and with the way this day is going, Nile isn’t even surprised when the car that was supposed to be waiting for them isn’t there.
“Figures,” Andy mutters as she leans against the wall. Nile notices that she’s putting more weight on one leg than the other, and files the observation away to deal with later.
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” Nile says as she faces Andy, Nicky, and Joe, and in a moment of pure amusement, realizes that she feels almost like a preschool teacher addressing their rambunctious students. The thought brings a subtle smile to her face, and Nicky returns it. “There’s no car, clearly, and we are all dirty and hot and tired, so we are going to walk through this lovely market, get something to eat, find a hotel, and pass out.”
Andy’s laugh surprises her, but it’s the most welcome sound Nile has heard all day. “Look who’s calling the shots now. Lead the way.”
So Nile does, down the street in front of them and past colorful canopies draped over the stands of different vendors, all of whom smile and wave and shout greetings in voices that would sound friendly and welcoming in any language.
“We have lots of experience with the food around here,” Joe’s voice is added to the mix as he chimes in from behind Nile. “So choose wisely.”
She smirks. “Believe me, I know what I’m about and you will not be disappointed.”
They only have to walk for a few minutes before they come across a cluster of tables and chairs in the shade. Nile nods toward them expectantly, and Joe, Nicky, and Andy step past her and sit down without hesitation. Joe winds his arm around Nicky’s chair and squeezes the back of his neck, just as Andy hooks another chair with her right ankle, drags it towards her, and props her left leg up on it with a sigh.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
Nile backtracks to a stand that had caught her eye earlier, and returns to the table a few minutes later with two heaping acai bowls in each hand. “I never should have doubted you, Nile,” Joe teases as he reaches for the two closest bowls and slides one towards Nicky. “It seems like I have passed my impeccable taste onto you over the past few months.”
“You can’t have all the credit.” Nile smiles as she sits and reaches for her own bowl, covered in slices of strawberries and thick shavings of coconut. “My mom used to let my brother and I have ice cream for dinner once in a while when we were kids, especially if we had a bad day. I’m just passing on the tradition.”
“That sounds like a very nice tradition,” Nicky says quietly as Joe reaches over and plucks a slice of banana out of his bowl and pops it into his mouth.
Nile nods, and finds that the sting of the memory isn’t as sharp as the last time she thought about it. She turns to Andy, who seems to be fully enjoying her mango concoction and the granola piled on top of it, and glances at her propped up leg. “Take your boot off,” Nile says. Andy considers for a moment, spoon still in her mouth, and then shrugs and toes off her shoe with her other foot.
“You’re on a roll today,” she says simply when Nile can’t keep the surprise off of her face. “I’m not about to argue with you.”
There’s only a sliver of Andy’s ankle visible past her jeans, but what Nile can see is already beginning to bruise. She pokes at it gently, and Andy winces.
“Looks like a sprain.” Nile sits back and digs her plastic spoon back into her bowl. “Keep it up while we eat, and when we get to the hotel I’ll find some ice.”
Andy gives her a thumbs up and then shifts her attention back to her dinner. Nicky and Joe have gone quiet, glancing at each other every few moments as if to make sure the other is still there, and Nile adds a point to her mental to-do list to check in with them when they’re all safely off the street.
The sun is warm but not oppressively hot against Nile’s back, and the sounds of four spoons scraping against the bottom of bowls mixes in with the laughter of kids running up and down the street, weaving in between different booths and waving as they pass. It’s a sound Nile could easily get lost in, especially after the chaos of the day, but Nicky makes a noise from the other side of the table that brings Nile back to the moment.
It starts off like a gag, and then escalates into a small coughing fit. The coughing, Nile realizes quickly, is very obviously a cover-up.
“Habibi, are you alright?” Joe covers Nicky’s hand on the table with his own, as Nicky drags his other hand over his mouth and holds it there for a moment. When he pulls it away, he stares at it, and then drops it back to the table.
The realization that he’s checking for blood hits Nile harder than she expects it to.
“Mhm,” Nicky hums as he swallows almost convulsively. Nile takes it as her cue to stand and get everyone moving again, because showers and sleep are feeling more and more necessary by the second.
“Ready to go?”
“You might have to carry me, Joe,” Andy deadpans. “I don’t know if I can make it.”
Joe rolls his eyes. “Your one good leg is probably better than all of ours combined,” he says as he walks around the table and pulls Andy’s arm around his shoulders, hoisting her up so he’s supporting half of her weight.
“It’s not like I’ve never carried you. Nile, has Joe ever told you about what happened in the 20s in -”
“That’s enough of that,” Joe interrupts as they step back onto the street, Nile in front and Nicky behind Andy and Joe. “I am not above dropping you.”
Nile stops in front of the third hotel they pass - a smaller inn-type place that, from the outside, looks like the perfect combination of comfortable and inconspicuous. No one voices any disapproval as Nile pushes the front door open, so she exchanges the money Copley had given her for a single room key with the woman at the front desk.
“We have adjoining rooms, if you would like,” the woman had said as she glanced over Nile’s shoulder at the three other members of the group, but Nile had simply shaken her head, smiled, and insisted that one room with two beds would be just fine. It would take longer for all four of them to shower, but something about being separated, about not being able to keep an eye on everyone for the rest of the night, made Nile uneasy.
She drops the key into Joe’s outstretched hand and gestures towards the hall behind him. “Go find the room. I’m going to get ice for Andy’s ankle.”
“You got it, boss,” Joe grins, and Nile can’t help but mirror his look as Andy gasps dramatically.
Finding ice is a much simpler task than Nile expects. She’s knocking on the door of their room with the bag propped against her hip in under ten minutes, and Joe lets her in.
“Andy’s showering,” he nods to the closed bathroom door. “She does not waste any time. I told her to try not to slip and crack her head open, but she just shut the door in my face.”
Nicky is sitting at the small table underneath the window, methodically emptying the three backpacks at his feet and checking each item before he sets it down in front of him. Nile watches him for a moment, and then glances at the two beds against the wall, both of which have already had the top blanket pulled down and the pillows fluffed up.
“How disgusting would it be if I just crawled in there right now without showering?” she turns to Joe, and he furrows his brow and gives her a look of mock concentration.
“I would say… 6 out of 10 on the disgustingness scale. I’ve fallen asleep far worse off. But that was because showers were not a thing at the time.”
“Fine,” Nile drags out the end of the word as she sits down hard on the edge of the bed.
Andy limps out of the bathroom a few minutes later, and Nile stands to pull the ice out of the room’s fridge. Andy holds up her hand. “Let me call Copley first.” Nicky tosses her one of the burner phones resting on the table, and she hobbles into the hallway, closing the door behind her.
“Poor guy,” Joe mutters. “He’s about to get an earful.” He turns his attention toward Nicky. “Would you like to shower now, Nico?”
Nicky mumbles a quiet “yes,” his voice cracking on the single syllable. Joe gives Nile a slightly sad look, but there’s something trusting behind it too. “I’ll go get it ready then. Come join me in a couple minutes.” With that, he disappears into the bathroom and the door swings shut behind him.
Silence settles over the space, nothing but the sound of items being lifted off and then placed back on the table one by one. Nicky’s intense focus comes off more like a trance than anything else, and Nile pulls out the chair next to him and sits.
“Nicky,” she starts, and he raises his eyes to meet hers. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”
He looks at her like he’s not sure if he should nod or shake his head, and then settles for taking an unsteady breath and staring down at the table. “Andy could’ve -”
“She didn’t.” Nile squeezes his hand. “She’s good. We all are.”
Nicky moves his hand to his chest, rubbing over it so absently that Nile doesn’t think he even realizes what he’s doing. “I heard Joe yell for me,” he says quietly. “Before I died. I could taste the blood in my mouth. All I could think was that I did not want to leave him.”
“Nicky,” Nile breathes out. She thinks of Booker, briefly, and how badly he had wanted to die. She knows that the same desperation must live in all of them, has to after carrying the weight of the world for so long. But Nicky and Joe are the only ones with a condition that goes along with it.
“I didn’t want to leave you or Andy either,” he adds, and Nile answers by standing, nudging his foot with hers until he does the same, and pulling him into a hug. “We’re all here,” she mumbles into his shoulder as she rubs his back. “And I’m not letting go of you until you take some deep breaths.” Nicky laughs wetly over Nile’s shoulder, but she feels his chest expand slowly and steadily.
“You sound like Joe and Andy.”
“That’s the point.”
They stand there, Nicky breathing in and out until it sounds natural rather than like a concentrated effort, until Joe’s voice floats in from the bathroom door, so tender it makes Nile squeeze Nicky just a little bit tighter.
“Nicolò,” Joe says. “Everything’s ready.”
Nile releases her octopus-like grip around Nicky’s back, and he steps back and runs a hand down her arm. “Thank you, Nile.”
“Of course,” Nile gives him a soft smile. “Now go, your husband is waiting for you.” She pushes him gently towards the bathroom, and watches as Joe takes his hand as soon as he’s close enough to reach. It closes behind them, at the exact moment the front door opens and Andy steps back in.
“Well, that was fun.” Andy collapses onto her back on the closest bed and tosses the phone to Nile.
“I hope you didn’t scar him for life,” Nile says to the bag of ice as she wraps it in a towel from the bathroom and then sits down on the bed beside Andy. She flicks her eyes towards the headboard, and Andy sits up and maneuvers herself backwards until she’s sitting against it with her legs stretched out in front of her.
“No promises there,” Andy shrugs with one shoulder and then hisses through her teeth when Nile presses the ice to her ankle. “Shit, that’s cold.”
“This should be good for now,” Nile says. “We can just ice it again in the morning and go from there.”
Andy makes a noise of approval and reaches for the TV remote. “Benefits of speaking every language known to man?” She stops on what looks to Nile like an extremely dramatic soap opera. “Entertainment everywhere I go.”
“This is not what I would call entertaining.” Nile shakes her head. “Now do you have any more injuries I should know about?”
Andy stretches her arms over her head and winces. “Just a few cuts that I covered after I showered. And some rather spectacular bruises. That’s it, though.” She’s quiet for a moment or two, and Nile thinks she’s just gotten lost in the mess playing out on the TV screen, but then she speaks again, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “Most of the blood on me was Nicky’s.”
“I talked to him,” Nile tugs at a loose thread in the sheets under her knee. “I think he’ll be okay.”
Andy hums as the sound of the shower in the bathroom stops. “He will.”
“You’re up,” Joe half mumbles, half yawns when he turns the corner a few minutes later and gestures vaguely in the direction of the bathroom. Nicky looks considerably better than he did earlier - his eyes are still tired, but he’s steadier on his feet and stops to fuss over Andy for a moment before Joe tugs him away. He spares a glance towards the table, like maybe he should give everything one last once over, but then shakes his head, mutters “domani” under his breath, and flops down on his stomach onto the other bed.
“I think,” he says as he rolls onto his back and stretches out his legs, “that this is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in.”
Andy snorts from her spot beside Nile. “You can't say that until you’ve slept in one of the royal bedrooms at Buckingham Palace,” she says casually.
“You’ve slept where?” Nile stammers out. Andy shrugs once again, and Nile slides off the bed. “You know what? Don’t even tell me. I’m too tired for an insane story right now.”
She wordlessly catches Joe’s elbow in her hand as she walks towards the bathroom, and he follows her until they’re standing out of earshot of Andy and Nicky.
“Your turn,” Nile leans against the doorframe as Joe runs a hand through his hair. “Are you good?”
And for all of their teasing, Joe simply looks Nile in the eyes with nothing but sincerity on his face. “I’m good. Things were a little rough, right after.” He pauses at Nile’s knowing look. “Which I’m sure you noticed. But he’s fine, and we’re all fine. That’s what matters.”
“Thank you,” Joe leans against the wall beside Nile and knocks his shoulder against hers. “For checking, and for checking on Nicky too.” He cranes his neck to look down at the top of her head, and she can feel the concern in his gaze. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Nile confirms, and she’s pleased by the fact that it’s the complete truth. “We made it here in one piece, and I think sleep will do everyone good.”
“You got that right,” Joe pulls Nile into a sideways hug, and then he’s gone, and the hot shower she’s been dreaming about for the past six hours is finally within reach.
Joe is sitting on the edge of Andy and Nile’s bed when Nile wanders out of the bathroom, feeling the best (and cleanest) that she’s felt all day. They’re arguing about whatever is playing out in the movie Andy has switched to, with Nicky sleepily chiming in every few seconds, and somehow, this hotel room in a city Nile’s never visited before feels overwhelmingly like home.
She settles in at the top of the bed beside Andy and Joe stands, stretching his arms over his head. She watches him cross the room and crawl into bed behind Nicky - curling close to him the way they do every night, and then snaking his arm over Nicky’s side and flattening his hand over Nicky’s heart.
“Yusuf,” Nicky mumbles, already well on his way to sleep, and Joe whispers something in Arabic that Nile doesn’t understand. She’s been learning - she can hold a short conversation now and knows far more terms of endearment than she’d ever possibly have a use for - but she’s almost glad that she doesn’t know what Joe said, the words something special and private for Joe and Nicky alone.
Nicky bends his free arm and wraps his hand around Joe’s wrist, and Nile switches her attention back to Andy and the TV.
Andy has gone back to flicking through the channels, and Nile nearly smacks the remote out of her hand when she catches a glimpse of Star Wars.
“Leave this on. I basically have it memorized, so I don’t need it to be in a language that I understand.”
“You know, I was at the premiere of this movie in Los Angeles. I even slept with -”
“Don’t,” Nile interrupts her. “Do not ruin my childhood. I don’t want to hear it.”
Andy smirks, but thankfully, does not finish her sentence. They watch in silence for a while, until Nile feels the exhaustion of the day more acutely than she did when she first sat down. She leans towards the nightstand to turn off the light, but then untangles herself from the sheets and stands. “One more thing,” she mutters, and Andy watches from the corner of her eye as Nile walks around to Joe’s side of the other bed.
“Joe?” Nile whispers as she leans over the tangle of bodies that is Nicky and Joe. She studies his face, and then, satisfied that he is actually asleep and not pretending, climbs back into the other bed and flicks off the light.
“Wanted to make sure he wasn’t faking it,” she explains when Andy looks down at her. The only light left in the room is coming from the TV, and there’s enough for Nile to tell that Andy will be asleep soon enough too.
Andy shifts in the bed so that she’s on her side, with her face propped up on her hand. She’s watching Nile with a very specific look on her face, one that Nile can’t place until Andy opens her mouth.
“You did good today, Nile. You did really, really good.”
Relief floods through Nile from head to toe, and she lets out a breath that she realizes she’s most likely been holding since Nicky stopped breathing all those hours ago. Everything she’d done had just felt right, and had come to her more naturally than she could have hoped for. “You’ve all looked out for me since day one,” she says simply, lowering her voice enough so that she won’t wake Nicky or Joe. “I want to do the same.”
“There are a lot of reasons why you’re so great for this team,” Andy reaches out and rests a hand on Nile’s leg over the sheets, “and for this family. You held us all together today, and I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Nile hopes the single word conveys everything she’s feeling, and judging by the gentle look on Andy’s face, it does. “Being around all of you 24/7 doesn’t come without its lessons.”
Andy chuckles softly and then flips onto her back. “That’s for sure. I’m glad most of them have been good ones. Are you going to get some rest?”
“I will once the rest of you do,” Nile yawns. “So hurry up and fall asleep so I can.”
“If you insist,” Andy says. She glances at the shot of Han and Leia on the screen. “And have fun with them. I know I sure did when-”
“Goodnight, Andy.”
“Night, boss.”
Andy closes her eyes, and her breathing evens out more quickly than Nile expects it to. The volume on the TV is low and every word coming from the screen feels like a lullaby, but Nile isn’t ready to sleep just yet. She watches Andy for a few minutes, and then turns over to check on Nicky and Joe. Nicky’s chest is rising and falling steadily under Joe’s arm, and if Nile squints, she can just make out the side of Joe’s face where his nose is buried against the back of Nicky’s neck.
The world feels somehow compressed to this little hotel room, like nothing exists outside of it. Like there’s just Nile, the three sleeping people beside her, the soft glow of the TV, and the half-melted bag of ice sitting in the fridge. Nile tips her head back against her pillow, knowing with complete certainty that if the TV doesn’t put her to sleep, the knowledge that Andy, Nicky, and Joe are safe and content will. So she closes her eyes, and soon enough, it does.