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“I’m too sober for this,” Spy announced to the nearly empty store. The lights flickered, in sympathy he pretended. Even technology was sorry for him, forced into breaking his back for the greater good.“We’re all too sober for this, mate, quit yer whining.” Sniper scowled at a row of empty mugs with kitschy slogans on them. He briefly contemplated the ‘#1 Mom’ mug to match his ‘#1 Sniper’ mug, but thought better of it when he remembered his mom almost cried when he got that.“I’m the one doing the heavy lifting here. Mentally. And you’re the ones asking for my assistance.” Spy picked up a box of chocolates and gave them a cautious sniff. His keen sense of smell could easily distinguish the cocoa content of a chocolate, which would be helpful if he were smelling chocolate and not brown wax poorly disguised as something edible. Scout’s face lit up at the box. “Ooh, chocolate! I haven’t had any of that in weeks, gimme some!” Spy glowered. “We are here to get gifts for your mothers, not your poor impulse control.” On the other hand, this was more to Scout’s taste than any sane person’s. This was going nowhere.When the two youngest mercs had shown up around seven p.m. at Spy’s door the night before Mother’s Day, every bit of carefully constructed logic, apathy and condescension in Spy’s mind said get the hell out. The two men’s eyes said please please please I don’t want to disappoint mommy. He told himself he owed it to the mothers of these two helpless fools to have a good mother’s day, and was definitely not interested in bailing them out of their own stupidity. Moreover, he was extremely invested in the happiness of one of these women, and the other had only the one son.He’d been hoping to sort this quickly, coming here. Teufort’s 24-hour general store had just about everything, including candied roadkill unfortunately. Spy was pretty sure it was only open 24 hours a day because the owner couldn’t read a clock. This had been a waste of time, but he wasn’t about to give up. Spy gave up on missions, his future, and remembering how to have healthy relationships with people, but he never gave up on making a woman happy. It was time for the big guns.He turned dramatically. “Gentlemen,” he said in his motivational voice, “we are headed back to base. Please call the Labourer and tell him to fire up the international teleporters.”Their first stop was Switzerland. The chocolatier was giving Sniper and Scout the stink-eye (understandably) but Spy had been here before, and gave the man a bullshit excuse about them being oil magnate’s rebel sons who had to give their mother a good present of risk finally being disowned, and would almost certainly remember who saved their behinds once one had killed their father and the other heirs and suddenly come into the fortune.(They were all rich, they were here for mother’s day gifts, and Spy would send him generous financial gifts anyway, so no harm. Angering a Swiss chocolatier was one of the nine great mistakes of the European elite.)Scout pointed at a caramel-filled piece shaped like a blue bird. “Hey, my ma likes blue birds a lot, she’s even got a wallpaper with a blue bird pattern! Well, now it has a hole in it from when Scott was wrestling Andy, but we just put a bookshelf in front of it until we had the time to replace it, which reminds me do you know where I could buy some of that stuff? I think it’s at least fifteen years old now, but I figure-”Spy cut him off. “Yes yes, I get the concept. Good idea, but your mother likes raspberry better than caramel. I’ll ask Hans if he has any of birds with raspberry instead.”Scout beamed at even a sliver of praise. In truth, he did feel pretty bad about this whole thing. His ma deserved everything, heck, he even took this job so he could send her money! But it was his first mother’s day away from home, and normally he and his brothers just did something for her in person. He wasn’t used to this fancy crap and the task ahead was…something he didn’t want to screw up. At least he knew he was somewhat on the right track.“<Mm, not the one with the white chocolate, Hans. Dark chocolate and filling, if you can.>”Hey, wait–“Spy, how come you know so much about what my mom likes?”Spy didn’t miss a beat. “I can discern the tastes of a person simply by looking at a photo of them.” Scout was appeased, but Sniper was suspicious.“Yeah, what’s my mom’s favorite then?”“Espresso flavored, which, by the way, you can find in a lamb-shape in the back corner.” The Australian looked briefly surprised, then scampered towards the back with visible relief.Damn he was good.Then it was over to the Netherlands-“Once this entire country fell into recession due to these little plants,” Spy mused, looking at the tulip bundles they were browsing. “They were all the rage, prices going higher and higher, until one day the prices had gone too high, and suddenly the florist’s prized bulbs were worth nothing. Never trust in the whims of the public.”Sniper started to idly pick apart one of his tulips, before remembering that that was counter productive. He grunted in agreement. “Right, well the solution to that is to always have something you can use yourself if need be. Potatoes, corn, wheat….” he sniffed the breeze and perked up a little. “Weed.”With his usual disdain, Spy sighed pointedly.“What? I grew up on a farm. Not everyone can just blow thousands on trinkets for fun. I mean, I appreciate this and I know me mum will too, but I’m not terribly sympathetic to someone who invested their whole fortune based on whatever Home and Gardening was called back then.”He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing, but Spy did give the tulips a closer look. The tulips he was bought for his lover. So that their son could give them as a gift.An emotion blossomed inside him as he realized what he was doing, but was happily interrupted.“Hey Frenchie, can I get some of these weird wooden shoes?” “No, they’ll make you look even more like an elf.”He heard Scout’s offended hollering in one ear, and Sniper’s traitorous sniggering in the other.The next stop was the tricky one. There were some sets he had in mind, but they were already in the possession of a Russian heiress. Then again, he had felt irritated for a long time about those probably falling into the mob’s possession when she died. Really, wasn’t he doing the jewelry a favor saving them from life in a store room and instead putting them on the most beautiful woman in the world?The young man beside him shivered. Scout had no body fat, and unlike Spy, not enough layers, so he always suffered in colder climes. He wandered a little ways away, trying to find a distraction while Spy worked at the lock. Sniper was either lost in thought or sleeping up standing again.A giant oil painting of a gorgeous young woman hung on the walls. The painting looked pretty old, but if he had a time machine, he would definitely make a stop here. When did she die though? Was she…still hot when she died? Did her ghost stick around?Maybe his pick-up lines would seem cool to someone from a hundred years ago…Lost in thoughts about ectoplasmic curves, Scout failed to notice the elderly woman sidling up to him.“Quite a looker, wasn’t I?” He flinched, reflexively falling into his version of a kung fu pose. She continued, mink stole swaying as she approached. “I may not be as much of a looker, but I am still very much…a doer.”Scout’s brain had no procedure for this.Fortunately, Spy slid in between them in a manner that was in no way protective. Jewelry safely hidden in his pockets, he slipped her a number.“This is from an acquaintance of mine that…might find your offer more enticing. He’s quite well known in Australia, and would love to discuss those bears you have hanging on the wall.”She smiled graciously, as Spy grasped the others and pulled them towards the exit, eager to end this subtly.“Enjoy the jewelry, young men!”Or not.Finally, back in Teufort.It was 5 am their time. Scout could still get his to Boston early in the morning, and, well, Sniper’s mother would be surprised to get it on the right day. The two younger men were leaning over a table, working on cards.Despite his best attempts to conceal it, Spy could tell Sniper’s card was surprisingly sappy. He was by no means eloquent, but his words conveyed emotion well.Scout had written very little–just a well wish and a bad joke. It had taken a lot of effort to write legibly and spell correctly, and he wasn’t going to push his luck with an entire paragraph. Instead, he filled his card with something he was much better at: drawing. He was using ballpoint pen, but that didn’t stop the portrait of her from being detailed and expressive. She did look lovely in it; it was accurate, but managed to make her best features pop.(All her features were her best features but lesser men might be distracted by age. The fools.)He found himself smiling warmly at the drawing without noticing. Scout, however, did notice, and looked smug. “Got something to say, fancypants?”Spy did not. He gently squeezed Scout’s shoulder instead, for just an instant, quickly enough that Scout wondered if it was sleep-deprivation making him imagine it.He gestured towards the door. “If you’re done, go take a nap before breakfast. Some sleep is better than none. And yes, I’ll take care of delivery. Now go,” he said, without any room for argument.He could hand off Sniper’s gifts to Ms Pauling, but unbeknownst to Scout, his mother was getting it delivered personally.Dorothea heard the knock while she was brewing the coffee. It was a little earlier than any of the boys usually came, but she had plenty of coffee for them too.When she opened the door, there was instead a very handsome and familiar gentleman holding a bundle of gifts.“Courtesy of Jeremy, mon ange.”She smiled broadly. “Did he have a little help?”“A little,” he conceded. He laid the gifts on the table just inside. “But I do have something else for you, just from me.” He reached a hand out to stroke her face.(The coffee was a little cold by the time they got around to it, but that was alright.)