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Rey, to be completely honest, is sick of her uncle.And she knows she shouldn’t be- she’s not a homeless orphan anymore, just an orphan minus the homeless part, and the bruises on her ribs shouldn’t matter. At least she’s not starving on the streets… But if she’s being completely honest, she’d rather starve than deal with the looks, gropes and countless injuries “Uncle Plutt” gives her when he’s drunk (or even when he’s stone cold sober).She’s sick and tired of Uncle Plutt, and she wants to do something about it, so she does.On February 14th, 2010, Rey gives Unkar Plutt a box of chocolates at 4:39 pm.After Plutt beats Rey for “wasting his money” (earned by Rey at her part-time), he devours the box of chocolates by 7:13 pm.Plutt dies at 7:34, and when the police arrive, Rey is arrested on a count of first-degree murder-But by 8:27, after Rey is taken to the police station and handcuffed to an interrogation table, something that can only be described as unnatural occurs.The electricity cuts at 8:53.The lights turn back on at 8:55, and Rey is nowhere to be found.***
9 years later
“Oh, this is glorious,” Rey murmurs to herself and the voice in her ear while her driver helps her out of her car.“You’re going to have to elaborate,” Poe says through the headset. He sounds salty, to say the least; Rey chuckles.“Where do I start?” She purrs. “Well, for starters, something you must know is they say the Palace of Versailles is a symbol of French monarchy at its peak.” She tucks a curl of hair behind her ear, lips curling and teeth flashing at the bouncer, who blushes and quickly lets her through.“And?”“Well,” Rey exhales through her teeth, “I don’t know much about it, but the French monarchy peaked hard.” She adjusts the delicate straps of her night blue dress. Poe scoffs, and Rey winces at the feedback crackling into her earpiece.“Any wardrobe malfunctions yet?”Rey looks around the room and smooths her hands down the almost ink-black material. “I’m about 90% sure the whole room can see my arse.”“That’s what you get for choosing a low-back dress,” Poe retorts.Rey tucks a curl behind her ear. “Simple, but effective,” she murmurs.“Simple but effective,” Poe echoes. “Describe your surroundings. What’s the terrain like?”“Well,” Rey sighs. “It’s very golden.”Poe snorts.“Majority of guests are arriving now, not much diversity, but that’s to be expected… no one of interest is here, is my point. We’re good.”“Any sign of our special guest?”“No,” Rey says and plucks a flute of champagne off of a waiter’s tray, “Not yet...” Her gaze is caught by the movements of a particularly handsome redhead across the room, and she whispers, “What’s the policy on sex during missions?”“Do you want the policy of your friend and dedicated coworker, or the handbook?”“Whatever works best for me.”“Go for it,” Rey can feel Poe’s eye roll through the comm. “I’ll give you thirty minutes. Make ‘em count.”“I never disappoint,” Rey purrs, and the line goes dead. She surveys the man’s surroundings; he’s tall, give or take six foot, no date in sight. Good. Rey hates to interfere with relationships, even when…Nevermind that. Rey strides across the marble floor, heels clacking, shoulders back, head raised high- she’s the object of attention at these things, the prized mare- what was it Leia said? Carry yourself so everyone knows that nobody will ever handle your body the way you can. Rey does just that, as she glides over to her target and taps him on the shoulder, and when he spins around, green eyes darkening as he looks her up and down, Rey smiles a bit wider than she needs to. “Hi, I’m Rey,” She says, letting her voice glide over the poor man. She holds out her hand.“Hux,” He stutters. “Nice to meet you-” He takes her hand, which, she notes, is grossly clammy- “May I just say, you’re stunning?”“Thank you,” Rey forces her voice into a high giggle and flutters her lashes at Hux. “Hey, how about we get out of here?”Hux nearly scrambles to wrap his arm around her waist, hand settling low on her bare back. Rey suppresses her shudder. “God, yes.”The two leave for an abandoned room, Hux with his champagne glass in hand, Rey with her kill in hers.***Rey expects to kill Hux in less than thirty minutes.He dies in five.Weirdly enough, though, while the redhead is pawing at Rey’s thighs through her dress while he slobbers on her chest, he just… Stops.He freezes, completely, and within a few seconds, he’s convulsing and foaming at the mouth on the floor like a seizure victim.Oh, wait. He is a seizure victim. Rey steps gingerly around the body and crouches down to watch as Hux’s eyes grow glassy and his movements slow before she finally allows herself to frown- Because she didn’t kill him. Someone else did. She clicks her comm on.Poe whistles. “That fast?”“No, actually- Hux is dead,” Rey deadpans. “He was groping me like a high schooler and just... dropped dead.” Poe falls silent. Rey knows he’s thinking the same thing as her- Sabotage. Someone got to Hux before she could, and although he’s dead nonetheless...“Rey, check your surroundings.” Rey does just that, doing a quick sweep of the room, locking the doors and drawing the curtains shut.Before she speaks, Rey takes a whiff of the half-empty glass of champagne Hux left on the table before he so tragically passed with a wrinkle of her nose. “Okay, so here’s the thing- The champagne’s spiked. Cyanide. Which shouldn’t be possible, because-”“That’s the First Order’s move.”“Exactly. And Hux is First Order, so either someone’s trying to start a cold war, or….” Rey swallows, hard. She tries to smooth out the tremors in her hands as she says,“Or… Snoke wants to cooperate.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Two months ago
Rey is desperate.She isn’t desperate- she doesn’t do desperate. Not since Plutt, and especially not now. Not when she’s ankle deep in Starkiller Base and First Order filth. Rey doesn’t even remember how she got here; her memories consist of a (very bad) last minute decision, latching onto the bottom of a truck, hands slick with gasoline and dirt. She thought it would be an easy getaway, a slightly rougher exit that would muddy an otherwise clean kill. She thought wrong, she realizes, as the truck pulls into the Order’s center of communications.Rey’s in a broom closet now, retracing her steps and planning future ones. It isn’t one of her finest moments, and she’s glad FN isn’t here to laugh at her bad decisions- speaking of laughing, someone’s doing just that, the girlish giggle ringing down the hallway and slipping its way under the darkness behind the shut closet door. Rey’s hands push the door open a crack; a peek through the sliver of light reveals a woman (Caucasian, lithe, 5’6’’, dressed in black and white, black cap on her head- that’s Bazine Netal, good God) clinging to the arm of a man (Caucasian, broad-shouldered- very, very broad shoulders, tousled black hair, dressed in black, at least six foot-Rey’s hands still, her breathing stills, everything stills. Rey’s heart stops in its tracks at the same time Kylo Ren does.He waves Bazine away with a few inaudible words and fixes his gaze on the broom closet door, no, through the door, at Rey.Rey lets go of the door handle and creeps back as far into the closet as she can. There’s no way she’s going down like this- no, she’s so screwed. She blinks, hard, smears some of the grime off her face, pulls up her sleeves and looks up- then a slow grin spreads on her face, a cold wave of relief washing over white-hot panic that’s boiling in her gut.There’s an air vent on the ceiling.The door opens.***There are mud stains on the floor.Bazine, of course, doesn’t notice; she wouldn’t see a bullet even if it hit her in the face. She sticks to Kylo like a koala sticks to a tree, nowadays (though, Kylo thinks, he has been compared to a tree more often than he’d like to admit); so now, he finds himself trudging down the pristine white halls, eyes fixed to the floor like a dog hunting a scent. Bazine, again, doesn’t notice. It hasn’t been high on his list of worries; no, he’s more worried about the obvious intruder on Starkiller Base, the one who seems to know the security guards’ rounds, the way they move, the way they think. This intruder doesn’t know Kylo Ren, he thinks. His lips twist cruelly at the thought. Whoever he is- he’s already done for.Bazine is babbling about her most recent assignment when the tracks trail into a wayward closet and end. Kylo murmurs a few sweet nothings to the assassin and she is appeased, slinking off to wherever she came from.“Bye, Kylo,” She whispers into his ear, her hot breath jarring against his neck. Kylo tries not to wince before she finally leaves, making a show of watching her go before turning his attention to the intruder behind the door.
I know you’re in there.
There’s nowhere to hide…
His boots, heavy yet made for the silence of dark rooms and midnight kills, thud against the floor. Kylo wants the intruder to hear him, wants him to know that he’s being hunted. He hasn’t been able to do this in a while: it sets his blood boiling, heart thumping with reckless abandon and sadistic glee. He seizes the handle. It's warm beneath his palm.The door opens.***If Rey wasn’t a hairsbreadth from dying a gruesome and meaningless death, Kylo Ren would be rather attractive.She realizes this, as she watches Ren from above in the air vent she barely slips into just as the door opens: his hair is dark and silky, the raven waves just begging to have fingers run through them; the shirt he wears is stretched across his broad chest and his arms are roped with muscle; and he’s tall, much taller than Rey gives him credit for, barely able to stand up straight in the tiny excuse of a closet.Yes, Rey thinks, it’s funny how the universe works. If only he wasn’t trying to kill her. She lets an audible sigh slip her lips, and giggles a bit when Kylo’s head whips up and meets her gaze. “Hullo.”Kylo Ren’s eyes narrow, then widen. Ah, Rey realizes, his eyes are a nice shade of honey when the light hits them just right. “You’re Kira.”“Affirmative.” Rey’s every instinct is telling her to scramble down that air vent and run for the hills.(Well, not every instinct.)“You’re Resistance.” God, his voice is deep. It rumbles through the grates and burrows itself into Rey's ears, and she fights the urge to shiver.“Last time I checked, yes.” Run. Hide. Never come back.“You’ve killed 154 First Order officers.”“Have I?” Rey props her hands into her chin and squeezes a laugh from her vocal cords; the sound bounces off the steel walls of the vent and burrows back into her ears, hollow and empty. She tries not to remind herself too often of how much she’s killed. Of how many lives she’s taken. Rey blinks, refocuses on Kylo and the information he’s giving her. Another smile carves its way across her lips: “you’re not too shabby yourself.”Kylo’s mouth twists and his nostrils flare, a mixture of anger, frustration, and… something else swirling in his eyes. Rey glances at his mouth, plush lips pressed together and oh, this man has nice lips. The universe has not been kind to me today. She fights to urge to bite her bottom lip as Kylo opens his mouth to say something, probably about tearing her from limb to limb, but instead, he says, “How’s about another one?”What.“How’s about another- are you saying what I think you’re saying?”“If what you think I’m saying is, ‘I’m offering you a target, prime First Order meat,’ then yes.”A long pause, then:“Last time I checked, I don’t answer to the First Order.” Rey furrows her eyebrows.“Last time I checked, I wasn’t in an air vent rigged with poison gas.” Kylo’s mouth twists again, this time into a smirk.Rey’s heart stops, then starts again, jackhammering at full speed against her ribs. “Nice bluff,” she manages, but she has a feeling Kylo Ren isn’t lying.“I’m not. Can show you, if you’d like.”Well, that’s settled. Rey falls silent, motors in her brain whirring. She gnaws at her lower lip and it doesn’t escape her attention that Kylo’s gaze falls onto her mouth, and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but she sees his expression turn a fraction of a degree hungrier.Oh, lord, I am in deep shit. Rey takes a deep breath. Exhales. “Who do you want me to kill?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Present day
“What’s the deal, here?”
***
“So there was an intruder today? On Starkiller Base?”
***
“There is no deal-”
***
“Yes, sir. She- Kira - has been set off after the scent, like you asked.”
***
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Hux is dead, and not by your hand, by the First Order’s. Do you want me to count the offenses? You sneak off to Starkiller base and come back unscathed, everything fine, not a goddamn scratch on your face, and two months later you’re going on an unauthorized mission with Dameron- who isn’t even your assist, by the way, he’s FN’s- and you show up and tell me something about cooperating with Snoke? Is this some kind of joke?”“Leia, let me explain.”
***
“Good. Then find Phasma.” Snoke waves a dismissive hand at his best assassin. “I’ll contact the girl. Kira, was it?”“Yes, sir.”“Then proceed.” Kylo bows his head and leaves the room without a word.
***
“Then do it. I’m not sitting here for much longer.”Rey sits back in her chair, swiping a hand through her hair. “Alright, here’s the thing…”
***
2 months earlier
“Who do you want me to kill?”Kylo’s shoulders seem to relax, but maybe Rey’s eyes are playing tricks on her in the dim lighting. “I want you to kill…” he pauses, as if tasting the words in his mouth, “Captain Phasma.”Rey mouths the words as Kylo says them. Phasma. He wants her to kill one of the most elusive assassins on the planet- a First Order captain, no less. “How, exactly, am I going to do that?”“You’re stronger than you think-” The words send a rush of heat through Rey, an emotion she tells herself is surprise. “-Nonetheless, you’ll receive an invite to the Palace of Versailles within the next month; find Hux.(Red hair, give or take six foot, green eyes, thin build.) Memories of photos flash through Rey’s head like a powerpoint slide; probably because that’s where she’s seen them.“He’ll give you what you need to know.”“A file?”“No. USB.”“Huh. That’s new.”“What?”“No, it’s just… Nevermind.”“Don’t tell me it’s risky. I’ve heard that one before.”“I bet you have.” Rey pauses. “And if there are any complications?”Kylo smiles up at Rey, a dark and beautiful thing reaching up towards the light. “Hux will be… Eliminated. And you’ll be expecting a call from Snoke, so watch out for that.” He tosses a card up through the bars of the vent, and Rey catches it between her middle and index finger, easy as breathing. There’s a location- a post office almost halfway across the state.(It doesn’t slip her mind that Kylo could’ve easily tossed a dagger up between her eyes, too.)Rey pockets the card and nearly bumps her head against the vent. “Wait-”Kylo stops and turns. “Yes.”“What about....” Rey feels almost foolish asking this, lying belly down in an air vent rigged with poison gas. “... What about payment?”“You’re full of questions.”Rey’s voice comes out huskier than she’d like. “You’re full of answers. Can you blame me?”Kylo smiles, really smiles this time, and it’s lopsided and kind of adorable, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he chuckles, and the sound bounces off the walls and pools like liquid heat in the pit of Rey’s stomach. “So long, Miss Kira.” He looks her square in the eyes, and goddamn it, if only he wasn’t the most beautiful man Rey’s ever seen. “I’ll see you soon. That’s your payment.”The door clicks, and he’s gone.Rey looses a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. Fair enough.
***
Present day
“You know…” Leia’s brows are knit together, her lips pressed into a thin line. “If Kylo Ren didn’t kill you then, you should be in an execution chamber right now.”“I’m aware,” Rey mumbles, mostly at her lap. The leather seat is chafing against her thighs, but she’s too frigid to shift.“Then you should also be aware that this kind of behavior is seven different types of unacceptable.”“I am.”“Lucky for you…” Leia sighs heavily before Rey hears her say, “Lucky for you, I have something to gain from this. “Find Kylo Ren. Kill Phasma; hell, defect to the First Order if that’s what it takes. That’s a direct order. The intelligence Ren holds is invaluable to the Resistance and the government, and if the president gets his hands on the intel and the assets behind Kylo’s kills, we’re done for.”Rey swallows. “In other words…”“I want you to capture Kylo Ren, alive. Bring him back to Resistance base by the end of next month, and I’ll consider not pumping your veins full with potassium chloride.”“Yes, ma’am-” Rey stands and makes it halfway to the door before she halts in her tracks. “Leia, if it’s not out of the scope of this mission, may I ask what you have to benefit from this? Personally?”Leia's gaze hardens, the thin line of her mouth turning downwards. “I never remembered teaching you to ask so many questions, Agent Kira.”“Right.” Rey- Kira - straightens her spine, grits her teeth, and strides from the room.Leia watches the girl go, twirling a pen between her fingers. She purses her lips. “I wonder…” she murmurs to herself, “How have you been, Ben?”
***
Kira… She’s complicated things. Not to the point of no return, but enough to make Ben Solo tweak his plans. He’d never think that the Resistance assassin would show up in a Starkiller broom closet, of all places, and he’d never think that she’d be- well, she’d be her. Assassins weren’t covered in mud and grease from God knows where. Assassins weren’t supposed to show up the way she did, smiling like the cat that got the cream. God. She’s killed hundreds of people- she’s one of the most dangerous people in the Resistance. He wonders if she knows that, wonders if Kira knows that half of the First Order is downright terrified of her… … And she shows up on Starkiller Base like it’s nothing, looking like an innocent girl. Ben clutches the edge of his desk and feels the wood creak beneath his palms. It’s maddening. It’s ridiculous, really, and it’s… Well, he respects her for it.There’s no way in hell you’d fit in an air vent, kid, he thinks he can hear Han say. The girl’s got spunk. I like her.The wood shatters properly under Ben’s knuckles. “Shut up.”Han listens.Ben takes a deep breath, exhales sharply, and takes hold of his laptop. File download complete, the screen reads, and Ben pulls a USB from its side. He looks at it, hard, worrying at his lip - the same thoughts flash through his head - You’re going to pay for this, one day. You’re going to die, and if you don’t, they’ll never let you stop screaming. You can’t go back. You will go back, you can’t go back. Should you go back? Will she even look you in the eyes? Ben grinds his teeth, hard, and pockets the USB.
Find Phasma. Wait for the girl.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
If Rey’s being honest, it’s really not that hard to track down Phasma.Rey receives a call on her burner phone- delivered to a nondescript postal postal office, where she waited from there- and exactly eight hours later, the phone buzzes in the back pocket of her beat up jeans. Rey’s not stupid. She recognizes the employee- or should she say, officer- who works at the office, along with the three other people trailing her throughout the day; and, she’s assuming that the trail of four bodies she’s left behind is more than enough to prompt the call.“I don’t appreciate being followed,” is the first thing she says into the phone.The voice that answers is nasally and raspy. Rey recognizes it immediately, with a jolt she hates to say is surprise and a bit fear. “Apologies, Miss Kira. Of course, the message you sent was certainly very clear; you will not find any First Order officers in your surroundings.”The threat is loud and clear. You won’t find them in your surroundings, but they’ll be there, all right.Rey smiles, half to herself, half to the officer she can see crouched approximately twenty meters away in a bush outside her car window. So much for promises. “Will do. So Phasma, yes?”“That’s right.” The disembodied voice sounds almost disappointed. “It appears she no longer supports the ideals of the First Order. I’d like it very much if she was… Eliminated, by you, as payment for sparing your life on Starkiller Base.”“How do I know you won’t use this kill as an excuse to attack the Resistance?”“You won’t, Kira,” Snoke says. “I’m glad you can discern my true intentions, really,” Rey shivers. There’s no way to describe Snoke except for slimy, and she grits her teeth as he continues, “this means I’ve been rather transparent, no?”Rey’s eyes slide across her surroundings and hums noncommittally into the phone, and after a long pause, she says, “And if I say no?”“If you say... no?” Something like surprise colors Snoke’s tone.“I’m alive, aren’t I? You spared the Resistance’s best man- woman, the thorn in your side. I could say no and walk out of here right now, destroy the phone, destroy any evidence of me being on the face of the Earth. I’ve done it before, so tell me; why… shouldn’t… I… say… no?”A long pause, then Snoke’s voice, quiet with rage, answers.“I believe the twelve snipers I have stationed above and around the perimeter of your car should be explanation enough.”As if on cue, thirteen tiny red dots light up the leather upholstery of Rey’s Mercedes Benz. Rey chuckles into the phone. She didn’t know that there were twelve snipers; she actually thought there were thirteen. “Thank you for that. Location?”“Captain Phasma was last seen in Paris, tracking down a target. If my data is correct, she should finish her mission and be receiving her payment at Takodana, from Maz; I believe you two are familiar?”They are. Maz has been a messenger or a middle man of sorts for both the Resistance and the First Order for longer than Rey (or Leia, for that matter) can remember. “We are.”“Then good. I’m expecting this to be done soon.”“Soon- then I’ll see you soon, Snoke.” Rey laughs softly.Snoke doesn’t seem pleased by Rey’s amusement if his silence is anything to go by. The line clicks, the call ends, and two and a half weeks later, here Rey is in a busy club on the corner of an inconspicuous Parisian street, opening the door with a vial of poison strapped to one leg and two knives to the other. An unloaded silencer is safely nestled in her purse for good measure; she hands it over to the bouncer with a smile and a small “au-revoir” leaving her red painted lips, and he understands instantly, leading her to a small back room.“Stay here,” he says in a rough French accent (if French accents could be rough) and hands her a tiny comms device before he leaves the room.The first thing Rey does after she hears the door close with a click is to place the device into her right ear; she hears static for a few moments, then a familiar voice rumbles, “Long time no see, Miss Kira.”Rey shivers, and not from the ac in the room. “I’d say something about you not being able to see me, but,” Rey sighs, looking squarely at the surveillance camera in the corner of the room, “I’d be lying. What are you doing here? This is my target, my mission. I wasn’t informed that I’d have any… Extra support.”“Well, you were informed wrong.”“Risky words, coming from Snoke’s lapdog.”“Since when was I anyone’s lapdog?” The door clicks open, and there’s Kylo Ren, filling the door frame with six foot two inches of tuxedo-ed goodness.Rey’s mouth goes dry. She tries not to lick her lips and fails; she can’t help but admit it, Kylo Ren looks downright delicious. “You tell me,” she whispers, and pulls the comm from her ear. “Long time no see,” she says, mocking Ren’s American accent, and pulls her lips back into a smirk.Kylo hums and raises one aristocratic eyebrow, and Rey clenches her thighs together as his gaze sweeps from her black stilettos, up her legs, half concealed by her royal blue slip dress, and settles back onto her kohl-lined eyes. “You clean up well.”Rey mirrors his action. “I could say the same for you,” She murmurs, then clears her throat- “-but I’m not here to flirt. Has there been a change of plans?” Her left hand, concealed by the dress, inches for one of her knives.“No, actually-” Kylo walks across the room in two long strides and sits across from her, pulling out a phone. He types something before Rey hears him say, “Everything is, as according to plan, proceeding quite well. Phasma should be here in around half an hour.” He turns the screen of the phone to Rey. They can hear us. As if on cue, the camera in the room powers down.Rey traces her fingers along the bottom of the table separating the two agents and scowls when she feels a telltale metal bump on its underside. The room is bugged. Of course. “That’s good to hear. Again, are you here to help me or just to hinder my mission?”Kylo types something again. I’m supposed to take you in. “I’m here to help. That much should be obvious.”Rey’s left hand, now secure around the handle of her knife, tightens. She narrows her eyes. “Then how? It’s not like it’s a difficult kill: in and out, I’ll be back at base in time for breakfast.” She pulls out a phone of her own, types her own message: That isn’t the smartest thing to do. It’s either that or a thousand bullet holes in your skull by 8:35. “I’m here to make sure nothing goes wrong; you see, Rey, after you found yourself at Starkiller Base, First Order doesn’t know if you’d be able to execute things… Cleanly.” Kylo’s lips quirk in the ghost of a smile.Rey’s eyes flicker to the clock on the wall. It’s 8:26. She hums. “So we wait.” So what, you’re expecting me to go with you?“So we wait,” Kylo says. He types. No, I’m expecting me to go with you. How am I supposed to take your word?Kylo blinks, then shrugs, as if to say fair enough. He fishes for something out of the inside of his jacket pocket and Rey’s eyes widen, just a fraction of an inch, as Kylo slides a telltale USB across the table.Her lips form two words. You’re Resistance.Kylo smiles.***If you could call spying on the First Order for two years and then returning to the Resistance branded as a traitor “according to plan,” then everything was going just peachy for Ben Solo.As he’d predicted, the lights go out at 8:30 on the dot and the small back room is riddled with bullet holes (courtesy of Stormtroopers) by 8:35; but while the sound of guns firing echo through the hallways of Maz Kanata’s bar, Kira and Ben are weaving their way through a panicked crowd towards a back door- or is Kira dragging Ben?“You know where you’re going, yeah?”“I’ve spent half my life in Paris. Yeah, I know how to navigate Takodana,” Kira mutters under her breath, and then tugs at Ben’s hand again. “Cover me.”They might be on the cusp of life or death, but Ben can’t help but let his gaze skate down Kira’s legs one last time before he meets her eyes; in proper lighting, he thinks, her eyes are stunning. She is stunning and stronger than he gave her credit for- he looks at where their hands are joined, his hand so much larger than hers, God, she’s so small. She looks- edible- Ben licks his lips; Kira parts hers. Ben swallows. Hard. He wants to- he wants-“I got you,” he finally says, and Kira’s hazel eyes smolder.“Then let’s go.”