Title: on patrol
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1200ish words
Content notes: None except the fact there's an assassin in the background?
Author notes: spies!au Umi and Clef
Summary: Umi's not sure she can tease Clef about being over-prepared anymore.

oOo

Umi was trying not to stomp hard enough that the people around turned to look at her, passing by the too-bright and too-loud noise of the pachinko parlour for the fifth time when the phone in her pocket started to vibrate.

She slid it out, winced at the name on the screen, and dismissed the call. Only for it to start ringing again before she could put it back in her pocket - and a third time after she dismissed it again. Sighing, she gave in, and accepted it. "What, Clef?"

"Umi, why are you walking in circles around my apartment?"

She pulled a face, deliberately not looking up at the window of his place but walking on. "I'm not. Why would I be doing that?"

There was a heavy sigh down the phone. "Look, Umi-"

"I mean, it's not as though you're at home against the advice of the Director and roughly everyone at work with an assassin after you, is it."

"One little email from someone at least ten hours by plane away doesn't constitute a credible threat. Not for another three hours, at least."

"I thought you were the paranoid one! But you're just, what, trying to get some sleep- wait." She blinked, coming to a halt. "How did you know I was-"

"How do you think I knew you're trying to wear the pavement out? Come on up, I'm sure you know where the door is, I'll buzz you in."

There was a click as he hung up on her, and Umi glared at her phone a long moment before stomping over to the door to Clef's building. The door buzzed just as she reached it, with no one else about, and she slipped inside as quickly as she could.

Clef met her at the door, and he didn't look like he'd been trying to sleep - there were shadows about his eyes, and he was still in the same rumpled clothes he'd been wearing at work. But he smiled at her, a lopsided quirk of the mouth as he set a large backpack down outside the door. "I'm surprised you didn't just storm in to yell at me," he murmured, while Umi stared around him at the apartment - which looked suspiciously normal, down to the lump under the duvet that looked like it might be either just flung on the bed, or like there was someone asleep there.

"I was too angry," she said, though the anger was being drowned out by a flood of relief. "Clef, you're taking it seriously? You're not-"

He leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her cheek, before turning around and doing something on the small panel beside the door - the one that looked like a thermostat but very much wasn't - before he shut and locked it. "Given what happened with Innouva, I felt it was best to be cautious at work. In case we have a leak still unplumbed. Hence a slightly public argument with Emeraude before coming back in time to rig this place up - and now we'll see if we can catch anyone with it." He pocketed the key. "Which does mean we'll be going out by a more circuitous route, I'm afraid."

"You staged it," Umi breathed. "When did you agree to that? You got the email while you were standing there, I saw your face-"

"Well, Em and I were partners in the field a good few years. We've got a few ways of communicating without tipping our hand." He shouldered the bag. "I'm sorry I couldn't let you know - we should set up a code system or something. I didn't realise you were in the office until I was at the door and I spotted you."

"I'd literally just walked in." Umi shook her head. "Hikaru grabbed me, or I'd have stalked after you right then - and I would be calling you paranoid right now, in almost any other circumstances. How likely is someone to find your home?"

"This from the person worried enough she was stalking around it like my very own secret security force?" He snorted. "I've been here a while. It's fair to assume it could be found."

"What were you planning on doing now?"

"Well…" at that, he paused, and looked rather less certain - he was even, she was surprised to see, starting to blush. "Once upon a time, I'd have turned up at Em's place and slept on her sofa. But now… I was going to call you." He waved a hand around the corridor. "Once I wasn't… you know. Here."

Umi leaned in, and kissed him. It was still pretty new, this whole kissing thing, and every time she came back from a week away she had started to doubt her welcome - until Clef leaned into her touch, a soft noise in his throat.

She'd never really dated anyone before, but… she didn't think they were doing too badly. Despite all the things interrupting.

"Of course you can stay with me. Or should we go to a hotel? Or- I mean." She shrugged. "I still have a suite at my parent's place. They do have their own security people, I don't think anyone's going to want to draw attention by sneaking in there, even if they did work out where you were."

"These aren't exactly the circumstances I want to meet your parents in," Clef said, voice dry. "But if you could spare me the sofa at your place…"

"Oh no, if you're staying at mine, you're repaying me for the favour. And that means you're not sleeping on the sofa," Umi told him, grinning, confidence coming back in a rush. He trusted her enough to feel safe just at hers - that was the biggest compliment she could think of. "Come on. How are we getting out of here?"

He led her down one flight of stairs, along a corridor between several other apartments, and then opened the window at the end - it faced a wall, just a metre away, another window facing them. Clef reached out and slid that one open, a hidden catch in the frame unlocking it, and they clambered over into a barely-furnished apartment.

"You're very certain no one was going to be here," Umi said, as he finished latching the window shut again.

Clef grinned at her. "I should be. I own this one, too - but it's a lot less likely anyone will find the paperwork for that purchase. Come on, we can get out into the alley by the conbini from the laundry downstairs. It's far enough out we shouldn't be spotted."

Laughing as quietly as she could, Umi followed him out, and together they headed to safety.