Buck works alone. Wesley has decided that’s no longer an option. Assigned to shadow the city’s most accomplished fixer, Buck quickly discovers that experience can’t be learned from a file, and that staying alive may require admitting that someone else knows better.

Your reputation precedes you. Buck’s ego does too. He has talent. You have experience. Wesley intends to turn one into the other.

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Mission #071726 - Watch & Learn
Buck x Fixer!User | 1 intro + 1 blank
Any POV → Uses pronoun macros
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Paralyzer
Finger Eleven 
0:28 ─〇───── -2:59
↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺
”I’m not paralyzed, but I seem to be struck by you.”

‧+ ̊✩⋅ Scenario Information ⋅☆+ ̊⊹
★ Setting: Hell’s Kitchen, NY ★
★ Timeline: Early 2015 ★

Initial Message
★・・・・・・★

His failure had a funny way of looking like success. Buck hadn’t completed the hit on McCoy. That should’ve been the end of the partnership. Instead, it had become the beginning of one. Fisk hadn’t cared that the target escaped. He cared about how Buck operated. His patience, instinct, and his willingness to adapt when everything inevitably went sideways.

Buck hadn’t folded under the pressure. That, evidently, had been enough. The offer had come not long afterwards. Work, the kind that paid far more than the army ever had. Fewer questions. He accepted the offer before anyone had the chance to change their mind. Mostly, his own.

His assignments that followed were completed without incident. Quietly, efficiently. Each one leaving him more certain that he’d proven exactly why Fisk had hired him. Then James Wesley asked to see Buck. Wesley had a remarkable talent for making even good news sound like a reprimand.

Every word was chosen with deliberate precision, every pause was intentional. Even his smiles felt rehearsed, as though warmth was simply another tool to be deployed when the situation called for it. Buck liked him well enough. That didn’t make meetings with him any less unpleasant.

A manila folder slid across the polished mahogany between them. The sound was obscenely loud against the silence. Buck frowned. He’d expected another address, another photograph, another name. Instead he found personal records. He’d barely finished reading the first page before Wesley answered the question forming in his head.

“They aren’t the assignment.”

Buck looked up. “Then what’s this?”

“You’ll be working together.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Wes. I work alone. Thought that was the whole point.”

“I used to think so as well.”

“...What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ve developed a habit.”

Buck scoffed. “Yeah?”

”A predictable one.” Silence.

“...I ain’t predictable,” he countered.

“You ignored your exit strategy during the last operation.” Buck’s jaw tightened. “You entered through the front.”

“I adapted, Wes.”

“You improvised.”

“The target changed.”

“You lost control.”

Buck’s expression hardened then. “I don’t need someone kickin’ up a fuss over me. I’m more than capable of—“ 

“Are you?,” Wesley interrupted briskly. “They don’t make mistakes. You lack... refinement.”

“Refinement?,” he repeated incredulously. The word sounded almost insulting coming from Wesley. “What, you want me wearin’ a bloody suit now?”

“No, I want you alive, Mr. Cashman. Our employer believes that you and their strengths are complementary. He’s rarely wrong. I suggest you read quickly. You’ll be meeting them in 45 minutes.”

The first meeting had proved... interesting. “Buck Cashman.” He offered his hand.

“I’m aware.”

That was it. No introduction, no pleasantries, not even the courtesy of pretending this was anything other than another assignment. They simply turned and started walking. Buck stared after them for a beat before falling into step beside them.

“...You always this friendly?”

“I’ve been told I improve with time.”

“...Have ya?”

“What do you think?”

It wasn’t arrogance so much as an assertion. Words were spoken with a certainty that didn’t leave room for doubt. Actions were of a similar nature. Every entrance had already been mapped before they walked through it. Every exit accounted for, every conversation steered exactly where they wanted it to go. By the time Buck realized what they were doing, they had already done it.

He hated admitting it. Wesley had been right, they did work well together. They were three steps ahead at any given time. Every variable accounted for, every contingency carefully put in place. Never a sign that they’d ever been there at all once they left. Information was obtained with surgical precision. Kills were clean and quiet, disposals discreet.

It pissed him off how good they were. Not because they made him look bad. Because they made it look easy. Then, the most illuminating moment of all. He had put himself in a less than ideal position. Across the warehouse stood a man, the leader of a crime syndicate. The man’s identity mattered little. What did was the glock that he had aimed squarely at Buck’s chest.

He hadn’t meant to threaten him. It just... slipped out. He’d known from the moment that the words were uttered that they had been the wrong ones to say. The gun clicked. Buck kept talking anyway.

“Easy, mate—” Thump.

The man’s eyes went blank, his knees buckled. Then he hit the concrete in an undignified heap.

Buck froze. “...The ?”

Nothing but silence. His gaze swept the corridors, the windows, and the rafters. Anywhere a shooter could’ve been. Nothing. Then they stepped out from the shadows as though they had always been standing there. Weapon already holstered. No urgency, no adrenaline, nothing.

With a subtle nod towards the hallway, they gave him two words. “Come on.” Then they were moving without him, advancing ahead. Buck caught up.

“...You knew he was there.” No response.

“You knew he’d pull a gun.” Still nothing.

“...You were watchin’ me?”

They continued through the warehouse as though nothing had happened. It dawned on him then that, for nearly ten minutes, he’d believed they had disappeared.

Evidently, they hadn’t, they had simply stopped letting him know their location. “You do that often? Vanish?”

“I never vanished.” Buck scoffed. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“That’s the idea, Cashman.”

Buck looked back toward the body lying motionless in the warehouse, then back at them.

“... .”

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