The Negotiation Limerick File (1/3) Spy AU
Title: The Negotiation Limerick File
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and this clearly never happened. Also: NOT kid!fic.
Warnings:Lots of jokes at Panic!’s expense. Swearing. Recreational drug use. Violence. Puns.
Note: Not not not NOT kid!fic. This is a different AU starring Brendon entirely. Brendon/Ryan and Gerard/Frank (shocking, I know). 27,500 words. This was inspired/encouraged by stereomer and her amazing Tie Your Monster Down. I was sad that there weren’t more long action-adventure spy AUs, and she suggested I should write one. This is not quite that. Super thanks to all the cool people on my friendslist who’ve been listening to me bitch about spies and ninjas since November. And especially to skoosiepants who is lovely when you send her crazy emails, queenitsy and liketheroad for help with the jokes and ‘plot,’ and imntsaying, arsenicjade and stele3, for looking it over and reassuring me that, while it is ridiculous, it doesn’t suck.
Summary: Have you any funny stories behind the making of the album [pretty. odd.]?
“We can’t... I mean...”
“We can’t tell you any funny stories because we’d probably be killed.”
- Jon and Ryan being interviewed by NME.com
NOW
The air duct wasn’t wide enough to really move his arms. Brendon pulled himself forward with his elbows and tried holding his breath. The problem was that he was attempting to be quiet, but the god damned air duct was lined with aluminum. Every time Brendon edged forward he banged his sneaker into the wall. Someone was going to hear. And then he was going to get caught, which would probably lead to his death. In which case Frank and Gerard were going to die, too.
“God damned,” Brendon muttered, “lousy,” he whispered, “stupid,” a corner, really, was not what he needed at this exact second, “My Chemical Romance.”
He was sweating, and his glasses were slipping down his nose. MCR had told him that glasses were a liability in a serious situation, but Brendon had ignored them, because he had been counting on avoid anything that was life-or-death. So much for that plan. They were totally right, though. The glasses sucked.
“Fucking Ryan,” Brendon said under his breath, “would probably fit through this tunnel like a … Like a … A fucking weasel.” Weasels were skinny, right? And they went around corners easily? He had never actually considered what animal he’d compare Ryan Ross to before, but clearly weasel was the answer. Particularly because Brendon and Ryan were kind of having a fight at the moment, and Ryan had no idea what was really going on tonight, so Ryan wasn’t worried that if he screwed up people would die. Stupid Ryan was just worried that he couldn’t find his fingerless gloves.
Any minute now the band were going to start wondering where their lead singer was, too.
Brendon really, really didn’t want the answer to be “dead.” Or even, “being held at gun point attempting to save two guys who aren’t even on our label, but apparently have ridiculous double lives.” He edged around the corner and his foot totally banged against the wall. It was really loud. Brendon winced and froze, waiting. He could hear a murmur of voices below him, although he couldn’t make out the words. If they heard him everything was fucked.
They kept talking. Brendon blew out a long, shaky breath and started edging forward again.
“This is not,” he whispered as quietly as he could, “what I signed up for.” He’d quit being a spy, he’d told Frank and Gerard he wanted out. He wanted to go back to being just a regular old regulation rock star who did not deal with life and death situations beyond the occasional crazy fan. This was totally stupid and he ought to turn around and go home. He couldn’t, though, because the air duct was too narrow and also Gerard and Frank were going to die. The fuckers.
The vent he’d been heading for was right ahead of him. He could see it, finally. Thank god. Brendon edged forward until his fingers were in the grill, and he was looking down in to the room. There was Gerard, beaten all to hell, and Frank, tied to a chair. Motherfuckers. Brendon had really, really been hoping that they were just faking the whole thing, and by the time he got there they’d have grabbed the guns and be delivering cocky speeches that started, “Not so fast! You thought you had us, didn’t you. Ha ha ha!” Instead, Gerard was mostly bleeding all over his t-shirt and Frank just looked furious and impotent.
That meant it was actually all up to Brendon. Brendon, who’d quit. Brendon, who’d fucked up no matter how patiently Ray and Bob had tried to teach him all the spy stuff he might need in a situation like this. He didn’t have a plan so much as a growing sense of panic - ha, ironic - and the crystal-clear understanding that if he didn’t do something in the next minute and a half, Gerard was probably going to die. The guy in the suit had his gun out and pointing at Gerard’s head and everything.
“Donovan has some questions about the band,” he said to Frank. “Unless you’d rather we killed him?”
“Fuck you,” said Frank.
“Fuck,” Brendon whispered to no one in particular. “Fuck. Fucking fuck.”
And to think, it had all started out so promisingly.
\ \ \ \ \
THEN
Brendon was late. He was never late to anything, that was totally Ryan’s thing when he didn’t care because he was high or writing. Ryan was awesome, but he didn’t have a lot of sense of other people’s time being valuable. He had like, evolved beyond it or something.
Brendon ran down the hallway and skidded around a corner. The venue was a fucking maze of concrete hallways and doors that were locked or led nowhere. Zack would have known where to go, but Zack had gone with Spencer and Jon and Ryan, and Brendon had accidentally locked himself in the bathroom for five minutes and by the time he got out they were gone. They were horrible, horrible friends and Brendon planned to tell them so if he ever figured out where they’d gone. How far could this tunnel possibly go before it came to a door that would let him on to the stage?
The tunnel ended in a door, and the door was locked. Brendon stared at it for a second. This was so unfair. He was going to be yelled at by his band and it wasn’t even his fault, really, except for the part where Zack had totally explained how to get to the stage and Brendon hadn’t been listening because he had Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend going through his head over and over.
Brendon yanked on the double doors a couple of times, but they didn’t give, and he was unlikely to swell up like the Hulk and smash them open. “Help!” Brendon yelled, banging on it with his fist a couple of times, just in case there was anyone on the other side to hear him. He waited, but nothing happened.
He turned and went down the tunnel the other way. There were other doors, but they were all locked, until the one that wasn’t, which flew open under Brendon’s hand.
Brendon was surprised that it led in to an office, and not anything that looked stage-related, like a dressing room or a storage closet. He was doubly surprised because it was a pretty small office with lots of people in it.
He was triply surprised because - “Gerard?” Brendon blurted. “Gerard Way?”
Everyone turned around to look at him. More weirdness; he’d recognized Gerard from the back but he hadn’t realized the short guy next to him with the long hair was Frank Iero. Plus there were all these guys in suits holding guns.
Guns.
Um.
“Holy shit,” said Brendon. His fight-or-flight instinct was totally broken. He had one hand on the doorknob and his mouth was moving but no sounds were coming out and he was pretty sure he wasn’t blinking, either.
The guys with guns aimed them at him. Brendon’s head went all light and spinny. There were guns aimed at him. He was a nice Mormon kid - okay, so not so much anymore, but whatever - and this was not anything he knew how to react to. He kind of wanted to duck behind something, but there was nothing in the hallway but concrete. Seriously, where the fuck was Zack when Brendon actually, really, honestly, needed him?
“Fuck,” said Gerard Way, in that weird high-pitched voice he had. Brendon had met him a couple of times at awards shows and stuff, but he still had serious hero-worship for the guy. Back when Ryan and Spencer had been covering Blink 182 in the garage, My Chemical Romance had already been a fucking awesome band.
“Uh,” said Brendon. “I, uh… Don’t shoot.” He considered holding his hands up like they did on TV, but he was pretty sure if he let go of the door he was going to faint or something else super uncool. What the fuck was going on? Was someone going to shoot Gerard and Frank? Brendon wasn’t exactly overflowing with kick-ass ninja-fu to bust out, but he was pretty sure he could at least distract them.
On the other hand, Gerard and Frank didn’t look scared. They looked… They looked annoyed. “Oh, god damn it,” said Frank.
It was like, the least possible importance right now, but Brendon blurted, “Aren’t you guys on tour? A lot of cities away from here? And is that a powerpoint of Osama Bin Laden? And uh… Is that blood on your shirt?” Frank was totally covered in blood, and not in an oh-look-I-got-a-nosebleed kind of way. It went way past ‘hard core,’ all the way to ‘psycho killer.’ “Something’s going on, huh?” Brendon asked. “Is it something cool? What is it? What’s that? Who are they?” Brendon had a tendency to babble when he was nervous. He bit his lip and tried to stop.
Frank and Gerard exchanged a look. It was a lot like when Spencer and Ryan exchanged a look, and Brendon knew that years and years of friendship were being parlayed into a conversation he’d never be allowed to hear, let alone understand. He’d learned not to get too resentful.
“Guys,” said Gerard finally. “I think we should explain some things to Brendon.”
It sounded mysterious and cool, although there were people with guns. “Really?” Brendon said hopefully. “Because I’m late for meeting the band. But maybe you could tell me really quickly, and then I could tell them where I was? Because that’s… That’s a real gun, right? I mean, holy shit.” The guys with guns were watching him carefully. Brendon couldn’t decide if he wanted to demand to know what was going on, or run away really fast and come back with Zack and Spencer, who would cope with this a lot better.
“Brendon,” said Frank. “In. Sit.” He pointed to a chair. “Before someone shoots you.”
“He’s just a kid, Frank,” said Gerard. “You’re scaring him.”
“Hey,” said Brendon. “I’m twenty! I’m not-”
“He’s an infant,” Frank agreed. The room was small enough that he just leaned over and grabbed Brendon by the arm, dragging him in to the room and shoving him in to the chair. The doors swung shut behind him. They made a really loud, final-sounding banging noise.
“I totally want to know what’s going on. I just uh, I’d rather not get shot, okay?” Brendon said, so it was clear to everyone in the room.
Gerard rolled his eyes. “Then listen carefully,” he said. “You guys can put those away. We’re gonna tell Brendon about this.”
“He’s not cleared,” said the guy in the suit with the dark glasses. He had his gun aimed right at Brendon’s head. It was so fucking scary. It was also really cool.
“I’m clearing him,” Gerard said. “He won’t tell anyone. Right?”
Brendon nodded so hard it felt like his head might pop off.
“No one,” Frank said firmly. “Not even the guys in your Fisher Price My First Band.”
“But-” Brendon started. He was totally shit at keeping secrets from Ryan, because Ryan glared, and he was even worse at keeping them from Spencer, because Spencer would beat on him until he gave them up.
“Because if Brendon tells anyone,” Gerard went on, “he knows we’ll have to kill him fucking dead.”
Gerard Way said a lot of crazy things. Like, he totally believed vampires were real and probably unicorns, too, and all kinds of other stuff. Brendon believed him, though. The two guys in dark suits who had guns aimed at Brendon’s head helped. “I won’t tell anyone,” Brendon promised.
“No one,” said Frank, leaning forward. Gerard wasn’t especially scary, but Frank, for all he was only like an inch taller than Brendon, had crazy eyes. He’d probably shoot Brendon himself.
“No one,” Brendon repeated. “Absolutely no one at all.”
“Because, see,” Frank went on, in his quiet, insane voice, “if we thought you’d told Ryan, or Spencer, or whatshisname, we’d have to kill them, too.”
Brendon swallowed really hard. He was bad at keeping secrets, but he could probably do it if the alternative was death for his best friends. What the fuck was going on? “Okay,” he said nodding. “I promise. And uh, his name is Jon.”
Gerard and Frank exchanged another look, and then they nodded at the guys in suits. All the guns disappeared into wicked hidden holsters under their jackets. It was very The Matrix. Gerard probably had a floor-length leather duster. Brendon totally wanted to buy one.
“Brendon,” said Gerard, in his serious, women-are-underrepresented-in-the-media voice. “My Chemical Romance isn’t just a band. We’re saving the world.”
“Right,” Brendon nodded quickly. “You’re all ‘don’t do drugs,’ and ‘respect the gay people.’ That’s awesome.”
“No,” said Gerard, “I mean we’re saving the world. We’re a band, but it’s also a convenient way to travel. People expect us to go all over the place so no one’s surprised when we fly to New Zealand or Japan or D.C. all of a sudden. We work for the government.”
“Cool! That is so - Wait.” Brendon blinked a couple of times. “Isn’t… Doesn’t the current administration kind of go against everything you normally say you stand for? So that’s really, really cool, but a little hypocritical. Uh, are they going to shoot me?” He waved uncertainly at the gun-toting suits. They were easily twice the size of a normal human each, even if Brendon did spend most of his time with the skinniest guys in the entire universe.
Frank rolled his eyes. “Not that government,” he said. “The world government.”
“The U.N.?”
Gerard and Frank looked at each other. “Not… exactly,” said Gerard.
“We don’t work for the government,” said Frank, “we work for the world. Remember when everyone thought Iran was starting a nuclear project that would probably end up destroying the Middle East? Well, they were, until we snuck in and dismantled it.”
“Ray and Mikey are going to solve global warming,” Gerard went on blithely. “They just haven’t stolen the code to the secret facility yet.”
“What we’re saying to you,” said Frank, “is that you’ve stumbled on something really serious, and we’re not fucking kidding. We will kill you.”
“We’d rather not, though,” said Gerard, and grinned.
Brendon should probably have been scared, but mostly he was overwhelmed with curiosity. “No, no, this is amazing,” Brendon insisted. “How do you find time to do all this shit while you’re touring? Does Brian know? Oh my god, does Pete know? Can you teach me how to do it? Can I help? I want to save the world, too! Let me help!”
Gerard and Frank exchanged another look. It was totally unreadable, except Frank looked annoyed about something.
“This is probably how it fucking starts,” Frank muttered.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Gerard replied. “Maybe this is-”
“If we let him in, next thing you know it’s going to be little emo kids everywhere we look.”
Brendon couldn’t stop himself from bouncing in the chair a little bit. “Please let me help. C’mon. Please. Please.”
“I think we have to,” Gerard sighed. He sounded unhappy. Brendon didn’t care. He was going to get to be a super spy and save the world and shit.
Frank shook his head, but he shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Okay, Brendon. Here’s the deal.” He smiled. It was a little wolfish. Brendon was a little scared, but he was more totally fucking psyched.
\ \ \
Brendon ran in to the sound check a full hour late. Spencer was so angry his face was bright red. “Jesus fuck, Brendon!” he yelled. “Where the fuck have you been? We called you seventeen fucking times! I can fire you. Ryan can sing!”
“Uh,” said Jon. “Dude. Chill.”
Ryan blinked at Brendon a couple of times. “Are you okay?” he said.
It was probably a give away that Brendon hadn’t said anything in almost a full minute, including an apology. His head was swimming. He had Gerard and Frank from My Chemical Romance programmed in to his Sidekick, along with an emergency number that would allegedly alert the Pentagon to a world crisis and maybe get the secret branch of the marines to show up wherever he was. It was in his phone under ‘Becky.’ Brendon was both excited to the point of incoherence and terrified to touch the stupid thing, which had made texting Spencer back difficult.
“Sorry,” said Brendon. “I uh. I got lost?” On the way to an alternate dimension, he didn’t add, because it would have made the band even more suspicious. He said stuff like that anyway, sometimes, but usually only when he and Jon were high.
Spencer punched him in the shoulder. “If the show tonight sucks, it will totally be your fault, Brendon, and then I am going to kill you.”
Brendon nodded and tried to look as little as possible like a person who was now partially responsible for ensuring world peace. He was pretty sure he couldn’t possibly remember all the words and play piano and wonder about the fate of the world hinging on Mikey fucking Way, all at once. If the show tonight sucked it would totally be all his fault.
\ \ \
The first thing that happened was nothing.
It was understandable, since My Chemical Romance was on tour somewhere far away, and Panic! was on a totally different tour. Brendon was busy singing, and helping Jon choose flip-flops for on stage, and playing guitar hero with Spencer to see how mad he could make Ryan. Brendon had a problem where sometimes he did stupid things to get Ryan’s attention
Brendon was totally overcome with curiosity, however, and ended up spending tons of time checking the internet for My Chem news, just in case. Just in case of what Brendon wasn’t sure about, but if those guys were really sneaking all over the world tracking down bad guys and solving crimes someone would have noticed, right?
He waited for his phone to ring, or ninjas to sneak on their tour bus and kill everyone, or something to happen, but for two weeks nothing did. Brendon got edgier and edgier. He was worried that the guys were going to go back on their word and not let him be an international ninja spy, or whatever the fuck they were.
When something finally did happen Brendon was fast asleep. He was dreaming that he was at Disneyworld and he was performing in one of the shows, but he was also watching the show with Ryan, holding Ryan’s hand and explaining that Mickey Mouse really loved the keytar. It didn’t matter because the dream shifted so that Brendon was trying to get Ryan to kiss him, and then his Sidekick started beeping. Brendon’s brain decided that the beeping was a bomb that was going to go off and kill everyone in the theme park, and Brendon tried to warn Ryan without using the words ‘bomb’ or ‘spy’ or ‘Gerard Way.’
Spencer threw a shoe at his bunk. “Turn it off,” he ordered, mostly into his pillow.
Frank had been pretty clear that Brendon wasn’t supposed to turn his sidekick off, on pain of death. Possibly actual, real, literal death. “Sorry,” Brendon whispered back, hitting mute. He blinked at the screen for a minute.
u up said the screen. It was from Frank.
Brendon considered texting back ‘no.’ Then he considered how Frank Iero would kill him. Y he typed back instead.
b will talk 2 u aftr teh show 2mrw. tell emo! at the rennfaire u r busy.
b?
u shuld prbbly strt working out 2 lazy
what???? Brendon texted. There weren’t enough question marks in the world.
cu l8r bb
Brendon almost clapped out loud in glee, and stopped just in time, because Spencer would not be amused. He could totally start working out, if that was what would help him be a super spy. He had really cool sneakers already.
“Are you done?” Ryan moaned. “You text really loudly, dude.”
“Shut up, Ross,” Brendon replied automatically. “Hey, I totally dreamed we were on a date at a Disney theme park. And there was a bomb, and you-”
“Brendon, shut up,” Ryan ordered. He made a big deal about rolling over loudly and rearranging the pillows in his bunk.
Sometimes Brendon got a little bummed out. He’d had a secret crush on Ryan, way back a million years ago. It was really amazing he’d managed to get over it so well. “You know you love me,” Brendon said.
“I’d love you to shut up,” Spencer groaned.
Brendon grinned to himself. It only lasted a minute, though. He spent the rest of the night wondering what the hell Frank was talking about.
\ \ \ \
The show the next night sucked. Okay, it didn’t suck like back when they were first signed and none of them really knew what they were doing, but it sucked a little. Brendon was distracted, and Ryan kept frowning at him.
“Did you honestly fucking forget the words?” Spencer demanded. “Should we make you cue cards? Would you like us to write them on your arm for you?”
“I just fumbled them for a second,” Brendon said. “Why don’t you sing, if it’s so easy, Spencer? Oh, that’s right, because you sound like a dying water buffalo. Shut up.”
“Your face,” said Spencer, disgruntled.
“Your mom’s face.”
“Who wants to go back to the hotel?” Jon asked. That was his not-very-subtle way of trying to stop the fight by asking who wanted to get high.
“Uh,” said Brendon, looking around. Someone was supposed to be meeting him. “I think I have to, uh. Do stuff.”
Ryan frowned. He was all sweaty, which was a weirdly good look on him. Not that Brendon had noticed. “Like what?” he asked. “What’s stuff?”
“I don’t know,” Brendon said honestly.
Zack stuck his head in the dressing room. “Brendon?” he said. “Someone’s here to talk to you.”
Brendon didn’t bounce or clap or yell ‘Yay!’ or anything. He did look guiltily at Ryan, though. Ryan frowned. “Who’s here to talk to you?” Ryan asked.
“No one,” Brendon said, because he didn’t know. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Spencer,” Ryan said plaintively. “Who is Brendon hanging out with that’s not us?”
Spencer shrugged. Brendon snuck out past Zack and down the hall.
There was a doorway he wasn’t expecting, where a hand shot out and grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked. Brendon windmilled and almost fell, and when he caught himself he was nose-to-nose with Bob Bryar.
Frank Iero was scary in that ‘hi I’m crazy’ kind of way, but Bob was just genuinely a guy who could punch the teeth out of your head. “Hi,” Brendon squeaked. “Um. You’re B, right?”
Bob rolled his eyes. “We don’t let Frank make up the code names anymore,” he said. “How you doin’? Totally freaking out? Gerard said you might be totally freaking out.”
“Oh my god, is that why you call him ‘Gee’?” Brendon asked. “It’s like, a super secret spy codename, right?”
“We call him that because his name starts with the letter G,” said Bob. “Are you freaking out?”
“I am cool as a cucumber,” Brendon lied. “Should I be freaking out? Is something going on? Oh my god, is there a nuclear war going on? Are you guys totally stopping nuclear terrorists right now? Do you-”
Bob put a hand over Brendon’s mouth. Brendon shut up. “You’re freaking out,” Bob said. He sighed. “Fine. Listen, we talked about it, and we decided there’s a slim chance we might use you for some stuff eventually, and that means you have to learn things. Okay?”
Bob wasn’t the most enlightening speaker ever. Brendon nodded. He was so fucking excited. Bob moved his hand. “Stuff like what?” Brendon whispered. “I don’t have to kill anyone, do I? I’m a vegetarian, I don’t think I can kill anyone.”
“Why couldn’t it have been Spencer?” Bob muttered. Brendon wasn’t especially insulted. Spencer would probably have been really good at all this shit. “No, you don’t have to kill anyone. I’m just gonna show you some things that might save someone’s life at some point. Like yours.”
“Here?” Brendon asked, looking around. “At the venue?”
Bob grinned. Bob had a really friendly grin, usually, but this time it looked a tiny bit feral. “Not exactly,” he said.
\ \ \ \
“We’re on the roof? Cool!” Brendon said. The parking lot around the venue was pretty empty, and anyone who might have seen them was already totally drunk. “Will it spoil your plan if I fall off? What are we doing up here? Are we going to rappel down, like Batman?”
“The idea,” said Bob patiently, “is that no one will interrupt us. We do this all the time, and if Gerard’s never fallen to his death I’m not that worried about you.” He took off his jacket and stretched his arms. “It’ll hopefully never happen,” he said, “but have you ever been in a fight?”
Brendon didn’t particularly like the sound of that. “I’ve had people offer to kick my ass,” he said. “Usually I just run away.”
“Good instincts,” said Bob. “Okay, so you’ve never taken a punch?”
“Of course I’ve gotten punched. I’m the youngest of five kids. Plus, I live with Spencer on a tiny bus. I’ve gotten punched like a million times.”
“Not by anyone who wanted to kill you,” Bob said grimly. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to show you how to duck a punch, and then how to throw one. And then next week, when we have a couple of days off, Mikey is going to show you some of his gadgets.”
“Mikey has gadgets?” Brendon frowned. “I thought he was kind of… Isn’t he a little bit of a space case?” That was the impression Brendon had gotten lurking on the fansites.
“Mikey makes all our stuff,” Bob said. “You know how Gerard says he’s a genius? This is what he means.”
“Didn’t he take a heater in to the shower one time, though?” Brendon argued.
Bob shrugged. “He forgot it wasn’t the one he’d rigged up to work underwater.” He held up his hands for a second, balling them in to fists. Brendon was not super enthusiastic about the part of the evening where he got punched by Bob Bryar.
“Are you seriously about to punch me?” Brendon asked. “Can we maybe skip this part and you can teach me how to be a ninja or something? Oh, I know. Can you show me how to hack computers? We can take down the military-industrial complex. It’ll be awesome!”
“That’s really more Ray’s thing. I’m not going to punch you if you duck,” said Bob patiently. “Okay, when I swing like this, you move. Like this.” He put a hand on Brendon’s shoulder and shoved. “Got it?”
“Uh. Sure!” said Brendon.
Bob frowned. “Duck,” he said curtly, and swung.
Brendon ducked. Or he tried to duck, but he didn’t duck enough, because Bob totally clipped him on the shoulder anyway, and it hurt like fuck. “Ow,” he said. Bob swung again. Brendon jumped backward. Bob moved forward so fast Brendon couldn’t even see him, and then, bam, Brendon was on his ass on the roof, and he couldn’t breathe because Bob had nailed him right in the stomach.
“I said duck,” Bob said.
“I…” Brendon wheezed. “I did!”
“Okay, well… Duck better, then,” Bob ordered. “C’mon, get up. We haven’t even started yet.”
Brendon got to his feet. “Aren’t you on tour somewhere really far away from here?” he asked plaintively.
“We had the night off, and Gerard’s worried you’re going to get hurt,” Bob said. “Duck.”
“Wait, why does Gerard think-” Brendon started, and then he was on his ass again. “Ow, motherfucker, warn a guy!”
“I said duck,” Bob said. “You are really bad at this, you know that?”
“Well then maybe you could swing a little less hard,” Brendon complained. “I’m new to being a super world-saving secret spy, or whatever you guys do when you’re not writing songs about vampires, jeez.”
Bob rolled his eyes. “Are you any better at hitting?”
He absolutely wasn’t. “Maybe,” said Brendon. “I’m not standing up unless you’re going to stop punching me.”
Bob put his hands on his hips. “You’re going to do exactly what I say, okay, because otherwise I’m gonna start swinging for real. I know fifteen ways to kill you, and not a single one will leave any evidence.”
Brendon stared. There was a chance Bob was joking. Bob wasn’t blinking, though, or smiling, or doing anything that might indicate he was kidding. “Um,” said Brendon. “I will do exactly as you say, I guess.”
It turned out Brendon was just as bad at the hitting part as the ducking part. The first time he took a swing he just managed to hurt his own hand. The second time, Bob blinked and said, “Maybe you didn’t understand. Hit me.” The third time Bob rolled his eyes and said, “God, I thought this was bad with Mikey.” That made Brendon feel a little bit better, oddly; there was no way he was as bad at this as Mikey Way was. It wasn’t possible.
Bob made him punch a few thousand times, until his hands were totally numb and his arms felt like lead. Then Bob said, “Okay, let’s try flipping people,” and grabbed Brendon, knocking him flat again.
Just about at the point where Brendon was sure he was going to die even if Bob didn’t kill him, Bob stopped. “Sit,” he said, pointing to the roof. Brendon dropped gratefully. His palms and knees were totally skinned from falling, he was bruised everywhere, and his heart was pounding in his ears. “So you probably have some questions,” Bob said, sitting down next to him.
Brendon had thousands of questions. “Yeah,” he said. “Can I start with ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I mean, it’s totally the coolest thing I ever found out accidentally, including the time I walked in on Ryan making LOL cats on his laptop. That was hilarious, by the way.”
Bob cracked a smile. He was way less scary when he was smiling. “That’s how we all felt,” Bob said. “One minute Gerard was in rehab, the next he’d volunteered us to be an elite crime-fighting team.” Bob shrugged, clearly saying That’s how Gerard is, you know? Brendon was glad he only had to deal with Ryan, who was kind of weird, but not that weird. “Gerard is pretty bad at the hand-to-hand parts, too, but he’s a genius at foiling evil schemes and last-minute rescues.”
“Not to be rude or anything,” Brendon said, “but Mikey’s bad at fighting too, right?”
Bob laughed. “Yeah, we mostly don’t let Mikey come with us if we think there might be violence. I swear to god, he’ll just lean against the wall and let us handle it, and then afterwards he yawns and goes, ‘Well, that sucked.’” He shook his head.
“Can I go instead of Mikey?” Brendon asked. “I will totally kick ass, honestly. I would be an amazing spy. I’m really great at sneaking around the bus, which I have to do a lot because Ryan can only write in total silence. Plus, sometimes Spencer gets these headaches, you know, and I don’t disturb him at all.” There were other times, of course, like when Brendon had accidentally set the microwave on fire, and that one time he’d gotten caught sniffing Ryan’s sweatshirt - for totally uncreepy reasons, okay, the way Ryan smelled cheered him up a little bit - and Ryan had walked in and looked pretty horrified. Brendon wasn’t going to mention that to Bob, though.
Bob considered for a minute. “Normally, I think, we’d leave you out of it,” Bob said. “But maybe. Gerard said… Well, I can’t tell you about that. But yeah, it’s better if you know how.”
Brendon’s heart sank. “I can be really useful,” he insisted. “Honestly.”
“At the very least you’re persistent,” Bob conceded.
“Yeah,” Brendon agreed. “And that is just one of my many virtues, dude. I’m awesome. Try me.”
Bob hesitated. “This is the deep end, okay, Brendon? There are a lot of bad people and they’re doing really bad things. I’m just showing you how to swim, because there are sharks. Or something. I don’t know. Metaphors are Gerard’s thing.” Bob rolled his eyes. “This gig is dangerous. There are lots of really nasty people.”
“I can handle it,” said Brendon. That seemed probably true.
“Way worse than what you’re thinking,” Bob said. “Drugs and murder and extortion and weapons-running and… You might get hurt, and you’re just a kid.”
“I’m not,” said Brendon. “I’ll be fine. I promise. I can get way better at all this stuff you’re showing me.”
“It’s just for the last resort. You know, if you get caught or in trouble.” Bob sounded ominous, but Brendon wasn’t going to let that keep him down.
“Can I tell the band?” Brendon asked. “Spencer would be so excited about this, dude, you have no idea.” He’d also probably be better at it than Brendon was.
“No way,” Bob said. “We’re responsible for some really important secrets. Gerard and Frank got in so much trouble for telling you. The fewer people know, the less likely any of you are to get kidnapped or tortured.”
“Uh. Okay.” Brendon shuddered. “I keep my mouth shut, in that case,” he said. Kidnapping and torture sounded bad. Brendon was against them.
Bob looked skeptical. “Don’t do anything until you know what you’re doing, okay?” said Bob. “Just… Keep your head down and your eyes open. Maybe try to get in better shape. You could go running or something. Try some weight lifting. I thought the guys in our band were small, but you’re practically an elf.”
“Hey!” Brendon protested.
Bob gave him a look. “Pocket sized,” he said firmly. “Like Frank. And dude, if we know you know, someone else is going to find out eventually. Be ready. You don’t have to be able to kill a room full of ninjas with your bare hands or anything, but you have to at least know how to duck.”
“Can you teach me to kill a room full of ninjas with my bare hands?” Brendon asked hopefully.
“Probably not tonight, no,” Bob said. “Break’s over. Get up. I’m going to show you a drop and roll.”
Brendon tried big puppy-dog eyes. It totally usually worked on Spencer.
Bob just stared at him. “I live with Gerard,” he said. “Stop that.”
Brendon let himself be pulled to his feet. “How am I going to explain all the bruises and contusions?” he asked.
“Tell them… I don’t know. Tell them you’re clumsy or something.” Bob shrugged. “Okay, hold your arm like that, and-” Bob really was a fucking ninja. One minute he was standing there, and the next minute he’d kicked Brendon’s feet out from under him and Brendon was flat on his back, with the wind knocked out of him, staring at the sky.
“Ow,” Brendon whimpered. That could have gone better. He was never going to impress Bob at this rate.
“So now that you know what’s coming, this time try and avoid it,” Bob said. He grinned.
It was a long night.
\ \ \
Everyone was asleep when Brendon got back, but he was so sore he had trouble climbing in to his bunk and he accidentally stepped on Jon’s hand. “Muh,” said Jon, and stuck his head out from behind the curtain. “What the fuck?” he asked. “It’s like, four in the morning already.”
“Yeah,” said Brendon, kicking off his sneakers and wiggling out of his jeans.
“You... You look kind of like you got beat up,” said Jon.
Brendon froze. “No,” he said after a second. “I uh. I fell down some stairs. You know me, I’m so clumsy. Ha ha ha.”
Jon frowned. “Be more careful,” he said, and rolled back in to his bunk.
Brendon was annoyed that that had worked, actually. He tripped over stuff sometimes, sure, but that was exuberance, mostly, not clutziness. He dropped his jeans on the floor and tried to find a way to lie down that didn’t make him hurt.
His sidekick beeped to life. b sez ur bad but not 2 bad
All the glamour of being texted by Frank Iero was gone. ur mom is not 2 bad Brendon wrote back, rolled over, and went to sleep.
\ \ \
Ryan glared. “I don’t get it,” he said, for the third time.
“Okay, Ry, when a mommy loves a daddy very much-” Spencer started, not looking up from his book.
Ryan threw a shoe at him. He missed by a mile, and Spencer laughed. “Who were you hanging out with, Brendon, and how did you fall down the stairs?” Ryan crossed his arms.
“I have friends in town,” Brendon said. “Mormon friends. You wouldn’t like them. And I fell down the stairs the way people fall down the stairs. My shoe was untied.” He shrugged, and then winced, because it hurt to move. The other problem was that he was bursting with things he couldn’t tell Ryan, but he really wanted to. It made him twitchy, which made him seem suspicious.
“You fell down the stairs and then went for a run this morning,” Ryan said skeptically.
“It has been brought to my attention that I’m getting a little chubby,” Brendon said. “We don’t all have your girlish figure, Ross.”
“He was totally hooking up with groupies,” Jon said. He was trying to read over Spencer’s shoulder, and Spencer kept elbowing him in the side. Every time Spencer turned the page Jon complained, “I’m not done reading that yet!” and Spencer sighed and flipped back.
“I don’t hook up with groupies,” Brendon said piously. “That would be wrong. They’re all, like, ten years old.”
Spencer snorted. “You’re like ten years old.”
“I’m older than you are.”
“Prove it.”
No birth certificate was going to solve that argument, so Brendon punched Spencer in the thigh, instead. He tried to lead with his knuckles and put his shoulder behind it, like Bob said. Spencer put his book down for just a second and glared, which was a good sign.
Ryan pouted and flipped his scarf. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I don’t know what you were doing, but I don’t believe you.”
Brendon tried not to be delighted that Ryan seemed sort of jealous. His crush on Ryan was really old news, and he was totally over it, but sometimes when Ryan smiled at him he still got butterflies in his stomach, and when Ryan got possessive it made him a tiny bit giddy. “Okay,” he said. “Whatever. Yo, Spence, want to play Guitar Hero?”
“Sure,” said Spencer, putting his book down.
“Hey!” Jon protested.
“Read it yourself,” Spencer said, getting off the couch. He grabbed the game case and the cords.
Ryan pointed a finger at Brendon. “I’m leaving, because if I have to hear those songs one more time I’ll kill everyone on this bus,” he said. How did he manage to sound so threatening in a monotone? “But I’m gonna be watching you.”
“Yeah,” said Brendon. “My ass is pretty distracting.”
Ryan made a huffy noise and stomped out. It was good that he was gone, though; Brendon was absolutely not going to crack and blurt out his giant secret. Unless Ryan wanted him to.
\ \ \
Panic!’s interviews had been cancelled for the afternoon and everyone was just hanging out on the bus, watching Star Wars for the seven-hundredth time. Jon and Ryan were a little bit high, which meant they got giggly and fell asleep on each other before Luke even got off Tatooine. Brendon wished Ryan were sleeping on him, and then told himself firmly that he didn’t care.
Spencer always watched movies really intensely. When Brendon’s Sidekick beeped, all he said was, “Jesus, turn it off, Brendon, you’re not Ryan.”
The screen said meet me outside
Brendon frowned. when?
rite now dumass
Brendon looked up, half expecting to see Frank’s face in the window of the bus. That would have been creepy as shit. “I’m gonna go get some air,” he said to Spencer, who barely looked up. Brendon eased out from underneath Jon’s legs and headed for the door.
They were parked in a parking lot, which was mostly empty. Brendon stuck his head out and looked around, but he didn’t see anyone. Frank was probably pretty hard to spot from a distance, what with being a foot tall and all, but there was no one around with crazy tattoos. Brendon frowned at his sidekick.
“Hi-YAH!” hollered a voice right in his ear, and then Brendon was shoved face-first into the side of the bus, with his arm twisted up behind his back.
“Oww,” said Brendon.
“You were caught totally off guard!” Frank said, delighted. “Sucks to be you. Also, dude, you have to ditch the glasses. Those are no good in case of emergency.”
Bob hadn’t shown him what to do in case of a sudden Frank attack. “Get off,” he said, trying to twist away. Frank just giggled. Brendon had seen Miss Congeniality about twenty times, so he stomped backward, aiming for Frank’s instep.
“Motherfucker!” Frank yelped, letting go. “Ow!” He looked surprised and cautiously pleased. “That was pretty good, actually.”
Brendon tugged his t-shirt back down and pretended his heart hadn’t been racing in pure ‘what if Frank’s about to kill me’ terror. “Yeah, well, I’m tough,” he said.
Frank giggled. “You’re really not.”
“I could be,” Brendon insisted. God, he had to be at least as tough as Gerard Way, didn’t he? Sure, Bob was bad-ass, but they were not a band that was naturally intimidating, okay, no matter how much eyeliner they wore.
“But you’re not. I’m gonna show you some stuff. Come on.” He turned and jogged off across the parking lot.
“I have to be back by five,” Brendon said, running to catch up. “We have sound check.”
Frank grinned. “This won’t take too long,” he said. His grin was scarier than Bob’s, by far. “We’re just gonna blow some shit up.”
Brendon stopped. “You mean… Wait, literally blow shit up?” he asked. He tried not to sound excited. He probably failed.
Frank looked back over his shoulder. His grin was getting nastier, somehow. “That’s the only way I roll.”
\\\
Brendon was totally incredulous that anyone let Frank Iero set off bombs, no matter how small and self-contained they were. Frank just enjoyed it so much.
“Okay, this is C4,” said Frank. “We’re not going to use much of it, because I think even your boyband might get suspicious if you went back with no eyebrows.”
“We’re not a boyband,” Brendon said, rolling his eyes.
“Watch,” said Frank. He did something with wires and buttons and then tossed the whole bundle in the air, and - BOOM.
“Cool!” Brendon said.
Frank giggled. “Okay, this time you push the button when I say ‘clear.’ It’ll be awesome. Ready?”
“What if someone’s walking by right now? And we kill them, and then the headline tomorrow is ‘Panic! in the Parking Lot’ and I go to jail?” Brendon asked. He played with the button for a second. He’d always sort of wished Panic! had more fire and explosions on stage.
Frank yelled, “Clear!”
Brendon bit his lip and pushed the button.
There was an awesome explosion.
“Cool,” said Brendon again. “That was… Wow!”
“Yes!” Frank yelled. “This is the best part of being a secret spy.”
Brendon considered for a second. He didn’t want to sound childish or crazy around Frank, but… “Frank?” he said. “Can I blow more stuff up?”
Frank beamed. “Of course,” he assured him, and handed Brendon more wires and things.
They went through the whole supply of C4 Frank had brought with him. Brendon didn’t ask how Frank had gotten it there, or why he wasn’t on tour with his band, because he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer. Brendon almost got his eyebrows singed off one time when Frank yelled ‘clear’ too soon. It was totally fun. It would have been better if Spencer had been there, critiquing their explosion technique, or if Jon had been there, because everything was more fun with Jon Walker, or even if Ryan had been there, acting like he didn’t think it was cool at all. Ryan could be kind of a buzzkill. An amazing, funny, interesting, adorable buzzkill, though, so it barely counted at all.
\ \ \ \
“You’ve been acting really weird lately,” Ryan said suddenly, sticking his face in to Brendon’s bunk.
Brendon looked up from his laptop, closing the tab really quickly. Ryan didn’t need to know that Brendon was looking up pages on guns. It would probably have worried him. He looked worried enough already.
“I have?” Brendon asked. “Really?”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You’re up to something,” he said. “It’s not my birthday. It had better not be a fucking surprise party again.”
“One time, Ryan. It was one time. I promised it wouldn’t happen again.”
“I’m scarred for life. Tell me what you’re up to.”
Brendon tried to sit up, but he smacked his head against the roof of the bunk instead. “I’m not up to anything,” he insisted. Now his head hurt. He was already over-tired and a little grumpy. It had been two days since he’d heard from any of the My Chem guys. If they’d forgotten about him, he was going to cry.
Ryan wasn’t convinced. He crossed his arms. “You are completely up to something,” he said. “I know you, okay? I know you.”
Brendon got a weird, tight feeling in his chest. If Ryan had really known him, he would have known about Brendon’s ridiculous crush. It was the only thing he’d ever managed to keep to himself in all the years he’d known Ryan.
“I’m really not up to anything,” Brendon said. He was only marginally good at lying, but it was going to have to be enough.
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “When I figure it out,” he said, “I’m gonna be pissed.”
“Yeah?” Brendon said. He needed this conversation to be over. “Well, we could always use a few more songs about betrayal and backstabbing, I guess.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan demanded.
Brendon shrugged. “Or maybe some songs about paranoia. Y’know, if you feel like writing.”
Ryan just stared for a second. “You don’t even-What the fuck is-Fine. Fine.” He stomped in to the kitchen.
Jon rolled over and stuck his head out of his bunk. “What the fuck, dude?” he said.
“Ryan’s nosey,” Brendon said. “Whatever. I’m not up to anything.”
“You have been kind of squirrelly. What’s up with the fitness routine?”
“Nothing,” said Brendon firmly. “Life in a bus eating takeout and junk food all the time is getting to me, okay?”
Jon held his hands up. “Dude, chill,” he said. “Hostile much?”
Brendon felt bad. It wasn’t Jon’s fault he was becoming a trained killer spy ninja, or that he hadn’t been sleeping well, or that Ryan was a nosey bastard who had trampled all over Brendon’s heart by accident and never even noticed. “Sorry,” Brendon muttered. “I’m tired.”
“Get some sleep. We already have a moody diva on the bus. I can’t handle two of you wearing rose vests.” Jon leaned up and patted Brendon’s leg. “If something was up, you could tell me. You know that, right?”
Brendon wished that were true. Saving the world was awesome, but it was making things awkward with the band. “Thanks,’ he said. “You know I totally love you, right?”
“Yeah,” said Jon. “I know.”
That was a relief, at least.
\ \ \
They had the afternoon off and a hotel for the night. Ryan and Spencer went shoe shopping, although they didn’t call it that anymore. They used a code phrase, because Spencer was a little sensitive about his shoe problem. Brendon was exhausted. He flopped back on the bed, luxuriating in the fact that it wasn’t moving, and there was enough space to stretch his arms out, and the blanket didn’t smell like feet or cigarettes, and Ryan wasn’t glaring at him for no reason.
And then the door opened, and there was Mikey Way, carrying a laptop and looking bored. Ray was right behind him, with Bob and Gerard. They helped themselves to the other bed and the chair.
“Uh,” said Brendon. “Hi? Did I know this meeting was happening? Where’s Frank?”
“Interview,” said Gerard, sprawling on the bed. “We figured, hey, we have a night off, let’s check in with our favorite newbie.”
Brendon couldn’t tell if he was being insulted or not. “What if Ryan and Spencer come back from the petting zoo?” he asked. It wasn’t his fault Ryan got to make up the code words.
Everyone looked at Mikey, who shrugged totally nonchalantly. “I’m tracking their Sidekicks,” he said. “I know where they are. When they get back to the hotel I’ll let everyone know.”
Brendon gaped a little bit. “You’re… Are you tracking mine, too?”
“Of course.”
“I… You can… Wow,” said Brendon after a minute. “Holy crap.”
Ray laughed. “Mikey can do anything,” he said. “So we hear you want to help.”
“I do!” Brendon blurted. He caught himself before he sounded too childish. “I would love to help you guys do… I don’t know, whatever you’re doing. I know our band doesn’t really talk about it so much, but we have a social conscience too. We totally feel ways about stuff.”
“Oh, dude,” said Gerard, lighting a cigarette, “Ray knows more about you than you do. Seriously.”
Brendon wasn’t going to tell Gerard not to smoke in the room. Mikey had probably disabled the alarms with voodoo magic or something. “You looked me up?” he said uncertainly. “You could have just called.”
“Right,” Ray said, “but this way we know everything. I have your high school permanent record, your taxes from when you worked at the Smoothie Hut, every report card you ever got, the article from the church newspaper about your third-grade solo, the email you sent to your sister about how you’re totally in love with Ryan Ross-”
Brendon’s jaw dropped. “I never,” he squeaked.
Ray and Gerard burst out laughing. Mikey was busy texting someone, and Bob didn’t seem the type to enjoy someone else’s pain.
“It was a long time ago,” Brendon said quickly. “I was drunk. I was kidding. I was kidding while I was drunk.”
Gerard and Ray high-fived. “Too easy,” Ray said. “Okay, so let’s talk about saving the world.”
Brendon tried to get his heart to stop pounding. “Yeah,” he said. His throat was all weird and tight. He didn’t care if My Chemical Romance thought he had a crush on Ryan, as long as they understood it was way over. “How can I help?”
Gerard took a long drag off his cigarette. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” he said. “But… Well. This weekend we have a mission and Mikey and Ray can’t make it.”
Brendon was so excited. “Are we saving the world?” he asked. “I am totally pysched for that, you have no idea.”
“We’re breaking and entering,” Gerard said. “Nothing too stressful for your first time, dude.”
“Oh,” said Brendon, the tiniest bit disappointed. “That makes sense.”
Gerard waved his hands around like a crazy person. “See, this is what’s fucking wrong with American culture,” he said. “You can’t just be happy about what you’re good at, and be comfortable with yourself. You always have to prove yourself, all the fucking time. No wonder we’re a nation that’s addicted to happy pills and alcohol. Why can’t we all accept who we are?”
Ray was patiently completely ignoring Gerard, so Brendon decided that was probably the safest route. “I want to help out on the breaking and entering,” he said. “I’m really stealth. I own tons of black.”
“I’m gonna show you how to shoot a gun and stuff first,” Ray said. Brendon tried not to look too excited. “And Mikey needs to mess with your Sidekick.”
Brendon looked doubtful. “Beyond just using it to stalk me, you mean?” he asked. “Because I don’t know what else you can do.”
“Watch,” said Mikey, holding up his wrist.
The bed Brendon was lying on burst in to flame.
“Holy fuck!” Brendon yelped, jumping to his feet. “How did you do that?”
“Watch,” Mikey repeated, rolling his eyes.
It still took Brendon a second. “Oh,” he said. “That’s… That’s impossible. I mean, I’m pretty sure.”
Gerard shrugged and used a blanket to beat out the little fire. He looked totally unphased by the mysterious fire and the possibility that they’d all burn to death. Brendon figured he was probably used to lighting accidental fires if he smoked lying down all the time. “He uses focused lasers,” Gerard said around his cigarette. “Do you have a coffee maker in here?”
“Sidekick,” Mikey said, sounding bored. He held out a hand.
Brendon handed it over reluctantly. It was like handing over his diary or something. Except Ray had apparently already read every email he’d ever sent, so fuck it. “What are you going to do to it?” he asked.
Mikey looked at him. “You’ll find out,” he said tonelessly.
That sounded ominous, but Brendon didn’t really have time to worry, because Ray was standing up. “C’mon,” he said. “You’ve never shot a gun before, right? This is going to take some time.”
Brendon was simultaneously excited and terrified. “Really?” he said. “That’s… That’s pretty cool, I guess.” It was hard to sound detached and cool when you felt like running around the room screaming.
“Don’t burn the place down while we’re gone,” Ray ordered.
Gerard gestured with one hand, waving a cigarette around wildly. That was not the greatest guarantee that the hotel would still be standing when they got back, in Brendon’s opinion. “I’m gonna call Frank,” said Gerard. “Let him know what’s up.”
Ray looked at Bob, and they rolled their eyes in perfect unison. “Having phone sex in someone else’s room is gross,” said Ray.
“Especially when your brother is right there,” Bob agreed. “I’m coming with.”
Brendon blinked. Did that mean Frank and Gerard were… Holy shit, My Chemical Romance had a lot of secrets. If it was possible for them, would it be possible for other people in bands to date on the down-low? Brendon had always wondered about Pete and Patrick, frankly. Not that Brendon had any interest in it personally, of course.
“Where are we going to go shooting?” he asked. “I don’t want to shoot anyone by accident. Oh, hey, do you guys have one of those firing ranges with the cardboard cut outs, like in Men in Black? That was so cool, I will totally not shoot any of the kids-”
“How would we carry that around?” Bob asked. “Jesus, you talk a lot. C’mon.”
Brendon thought that was pretty unfair. Bob lived with Gerard and Frank. There was no way Brendon talked more than the two of them. At least not put together, c’mon.
Part Two
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and this clearly never happened. Also: NOT kid!fic.
Warnings:Lots of jokes at Panic!’s expense. Swearing. Recreational drug use. Violence. Puns.
Note: Not not not NOT kid!fic. This is a different AU starring Brendon entirely. Brendon/Ryan and Gerard/Frank (shocking, I know). 27,500 words. This was inspired/encouraged by stereomer and her amazing Tie Your Monster Down. I was sad that there weren’t more long action-adventure spy AUs, and she suggested I should write one. This is not quite that. Super thanks to all the cool people on my friendslist who’ve been listening to me bitch about spies and ninjas since November. And especially to skoosiepants who is lovely when you send her crazy emails, queenitsy and liketheroad for help with the jokes and ‘plot,’ and imntsaying, arsenicjade and stele3, for looking it over and reassuring me that, while it is ridiculous, it doesn’t suck.
Summary: Have you any funny stories behind the making of the album [pretty. odd.]?
“We can’t... I mean...”
“We can’t tell you any funny stories because we’d probably be killed.”
- Jon and Ryan being interviewed by NME.com
NOW
The air duct wasn’t wide enough to really move his arms. Brendon pulled himself forward with his elbows and tried holding his breath. The problem was that he was attempting to be quiet, but the god damned air duct was lined with aluminum. Every time Brendon edged forward he banged his sneaker into the wall. Someone was going to hear. And then he was going to get caught, which would probably lead to his death. In which case Frank and Gerard were going to die, too.
“God damned,” Brendon muttered, “lousy,” he whispered, “stupid,” a corner, really, was not what he needed at this exact second, “My Chemical Romance.”
He was sweating, and his glasses were slipping down his nose. MCR had told him that glasses were a liability in a serious situation, but Brendon had ignored them, because he had been counting on avoid anything that was life-or-death. So much for that plan. They were totally right, though. The glasses sucked.
“Fucking Ryan,” Brendon said under his breath, “would probably fit through this tunnel like a … Like a … A fucking weasel.” Weasels were skinny, right? And they went around corners easily? He had never actually considered what animal he’d compare Ryan Ross to before, but clearly weasel was the answer. Particularly because Brendon and Ryan were kind of having a fight at the moment, and Ryan had no idea what was really going on tonight, so Ryan wasn’t worried that if he screwed up people would die. Stupid Ryan was just worried that he couldn’t find his fingerless gloves.
Any minute now the band were going to start wondering where their lead singer was, too.
Brendon really, really didn’t want the answer to be “dead.” Or even, “being held at gun point attempting to save two guys who aren’t even on our label, but apparently have ridiculous double lives.” He edged around the corner and his foot totally banged against the wall. It was really loud. Brendon winced and froze, waiting. He could hear a murmur of voices below him, although he couldn’t make out the words. If they heard him everything was fucked.
They kept talking. Brendon blew out a long, shaky breath and started edging forward again.
“This is not,” he whispered as quietly as he could, “what I signed up for.” He’d quit being a spy, he’d told Frank and Gerard he wanted out. He wanted to go back to being just a regular old regulation rock star who did not deal with life and death situations beyond the occasional crazy fan. This was totally stupid and he ought to turn around and go home. He couldn’t, though, because the air duct was too narrow and also Gerard and Frank were going to die. The fuckers.
The vent he’d been heading for was right ahead of him. He could see it, finally. Thank god. Brendon edged forward until his fingers were in the grill, and he was looking down in to the room. There was Gerard, beaten all to hell, and Frank, tied to a chair. Motherfuckers. Brendon had really, really been hoping that they were just faking the whole thing, and by the time he got there they’d have grabbed the guns and be delivering cocky speeches that started, “Not so fast! You thought you had us, didn’t you. Ha ha ha!” Instead, Gerard was mostly bleeding all over his t-shirt and Frank just looked furious and impotent.
That meant it was actually all up to Brendon. Brendon, who’d quit. Brendon, who’d fucked up no matter how patiently Ray and Bob had tried to teach him all the spy stuff he might need in a situation like this. He didn’t have a plan so much as a growing sense of panic - ha, ironic - and the crystal-clear understanding that if he didn’t do something in the next minute and a half, Gerard was probably going to die. The guy in the suit had his gun out and pointing at Gerard’s head and everything.
“Donovan has some questions about the band,” he said to Frank. “Unless you’d rather we killed him?”
“Fuck you,” said Frank.
“Fuck,” Brendon whispered to no one in particular. “Fuck. Fucking fuck.”
And to think, it had all started out so promisingly.
\ \ \ \ \
THEN
Brendon was late. He was never late to anything, that was totally Ryan’s thing when he didn’t care because he was high or writing. Ryan was awesome, but he didn’t have a lot of sense of other people’s time being valuable. He had like, evolved beyond it or something.
Brendon ran down the hallway and skidded around a corner. The venue was a fucking maze of concrete hallways and doors that were locked or led nowhere. Zack would have known where to go, but Zack had gone with Spencer and Jon and Ryan, and Brendon had accidentally locked himself in the bathroom for five minutes and by the time he got out they were gone. They were horrible, horrible friends and Brendon planned to tell them so if he ever figured out where they’d gone. How far could this tunnel possibly go before it came to a door that would let him on to the stage?
The tunnel ended in a door, and the door was locked. Brendon stared at it for a second. This was so unfair. He was going to be yelled at by his band and it wasn’t even his fault, really, except for the part where Zack had totally explained how to get to the stage and Brendon hadn’t been listening because he had Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend going through his head over and over.
Brendon yanked on the double doors a couple of times, but they didn’t give, and he was unlikely to swell up like the Hulk and smash them open. “Help!” Brendon yelled, banging on it with his fist a couple of times, just in case there was anyone on the other side to hear him. He waited, but nothing happened.
He turned and went down the tunnel the other way. There were other doors, but they were all locked, until the one that wasn’t, which flew open under Brendon’s hand.
Brendon was surprised that it led in to an office, and not anything that looked stage-related, like a dressing room or a storage closet. He was doubly surprised because it was a pretty small office with lots of people in it.
He was triply surprised because - “Gerard?” Brendon blurted. “Gerard Way?”
Everyone turned around to look at him. More weirdness; he’d recognized Gerard from the back but he hadn’t realized the short guy next to him with the long hair was Frank Iero. Plus there were all these guys in suits holding guns.
Guns.
Um.
“Holy shit,” said Brendon. His fight-or-flight instinct was totally broken. He had one hand on the doorknob and his mouth was moving but no sounds were coming out and he was pretty sure he wasn’t blinking, either.
The guys with guns aimed them at him. Brendon’s head went all light and spinny. There were guns aimed at him. He was a nice Mormon kid - okay, so not so much anymore, but whatever - and this was not anything he knew how to react to. He kind of wanted to duck behind something, but there was nothing in the hallway but concrete. Seriously, where the fuck was Zack when Brendon actually, really, honestly, needed him?
“Fuck,” said Gerard Way, in that weird high-pitched voice he had. Brendon had met him a couple of times at awards shows and stuff, but he still had serious hero-worship for the guy. Back when Ryan and Spencer had been covering Blink 182 in the garage, My Chemical Romance had already been a fucking awesome band.
“Uh,” said Brendon. “I, uh… Don’t shoot.” He considered holding his hands up like they did on TV, but he was pretty sure if he let go of the door he was going to faint or something else super uncool. What the fuck was going on? Was someone going to shoot Gerard and Frank? Brendon wasn’t exactly overflowing with kick-ass ninja-fu to bust out, but he was pretty sure he could at least distract them.
On the other hand, Gerard and Frank didn’t look scared. They looked… They looked annoyed. “Oh, god damn it,” said Frank.
It was like, the least possible importance right now, but Brendon blurted, “Aren’t you guys on tour? A lot of cities away from here? And is that a powerpoint of Osama Bin Laden? And uh… Is that blood on your shirt?” Frank was totally covered in blood, and not in an oh-look-I-got-a-nosebleed kind of way. It went way past ‘hard core,’ all the way to ‘psycho killer.’ “Something’s going on, huh?” Brendon asked. “Is it something cool? What is it? What’s that? Who are they?” Brendon had a tendency to babble when he was nervous. He bit his lip and tried to stop.
Frank and Gerard exchanged a look. It was a lot like when Spencer and Ryan exchanged a look, and Brendon knew that years and years of friendship were being parlayed into a conversation he’d never be allowed to hear, let alone understand. He’d learned not to get too resentful.
“Guys,” said Gerard finally. “I think we should explain some things to Brendon.”
It sounded mysterious and cool, although there were people with guns. “Really?” Brendon said hopefully. “Because I’m late for meeting the band. But maybe you could tell me really quickly, and then I could tell them where I was? Because that’s… That’s a real gun, right? I mean, holy shit.” The guys with guns were watching him carefully. Brendon couldn’t decide if he wanted to demand to know what was going on, or run away really fast and come back with Zack and Spencer, who would cope with this a lot better.
“Brendon,” said Frank. “In. Sit.” He pointed to a chair. “Before someone shoots you.”
“He’s just a kid, Frank,” said Gerard. “You’re scaring him.”
“Hey,” said Brendon. “I’m twenty! I’m not-”
“He’s an infant,” Frank agreed. The room was small enough that he just leaned over and grabbed Brendon by the arm, dragging him in to the room and shoving him in to the chair. The doors swung shut behind him. They made a really loud, final-sounding banging noise.
“I totally want to know what’s going on. I just uh, I’d rather not get shot, okay?” Brendon said, so it was clear to everyone in the room.
Gerard rolled his eyes. “Then listen carefully,” he said. “You guys can put those away. We’re gonna tell Brendon about this.”
“He’s not cleared,” said the guy in the suit with the dark glasses. He had his gun aimed right at Brendon’s head. It was so fucking scary. It was also really cool.
“I’m clearing him,” Gerard said. “He won’t tell anyone. Right?”
Brendon nodded so hard it felt like his head might pop off.
“No one,” Frank said firmly. “Not even the guys in your Fisher Price My First Band.”
“But-” Brendon started. He was totally shit at keeping secrets from Ryan, because Ryan glared, and he was even worse at keeping them from Spencer, because Spencer would beat on him until he gave them up.
“Because if Brendon tells anyone,” Gerard went on, “he knows we’ll have to kill him fucking dead.”
Gerard Way said a lot of crazy things. Like, he totally believed vampires were real and probably unicorns, too, and all kinds of other stuff. Brendon believed him, though. The two guys in dark suits who had guns aimed at Brendon’s head helped. “I won’t tell anyone,” Brendon promised.
“No one,” said Frank, leaning forward. Gerard wasn’t especially scary, but Frank, for all he was only like an inch taller than Brendon, had crazy eyes. He’d probably shoot Brendon himself.
“No one,” Brendon repeated. “Absolutely no one at all.”
“Because, see,” Frank went on, in his quiet, insane voice, “if we thought you’d told Ryan, or Spencer, or whatshisname, we’d have to kill them, too.”
Brendon swallowed really hard. He was bad at keeping secrets, but he could probably do it if the alternative was death for his best friends. What the fuck was going on? “Okay,” he said nodding. “I promise. And uh, his name is Jon.”
Gerard and Frank exchanged another look, and then they nodded at the guys in suits. All the guns disappeared into wicked hidden holsters under their jackets. It was very The Matrix. Gerard probably had a floor-length leather duster. Brendon totally wanted to buy one.
“Brendon,” said Gerard, in his serious, women-are-underrepresented-in-the-media voice. “My Chemical Romance isn’t just a band. We’re saving the world.”
“Right,” Brendon nodded quickly. “You’re all ‘don’t do drugs,’ and ‘respect the gay people.’ That’s awesome.”
“No,” said Gerard, “I mean we’re saving the world. We’re a band, but it’s also a convenient way to travel. People expect us to go all over the place so no one’s surprised when we fly to New Zealand or Japan or D.C. all of a sudden. We work for the government.”
“Cool! That is so - Wait.” Brendon blinked a couple of times. “Isn’t… Doesn’t the current administration kind of go against everything you normally say you stand for? So that’s really, really cool, but a little hypocritical. Uh, are they going to shoot me?” He waved uncertainly at the gun-toting suits. They were easily twice the size of a normal human each, even if Brendon did spend most of his time with the skinniest guys in the entire universe.
Frank rolled his eyes. “Not that government,” he said. “The world government.”
“The U.N.?”
Gerard and Frank looked at each other. “Not… exactly,” said Gerard.
“We don’t work for the government,” said Frank, “we work for the world. Remember when everyone thought Iran was starting a nuclear project that would probably end up destroying the Middle East? Well, they were, until we snuck in and dismantled it.”
“Ray and Mikey are going to solve global warming,” Gerard went on blithely. “They just haven’t stolen the code to the secret facility yet.”
“What we’re saying to you,” said Frank, “is that you’ve stumbled on something really serious, and we’re not fucking kidding. We will kill you.”
“We’d rather not, though,” said Gerard, and grinned.
Brendon should probably have been scared, but mostly he was overwhelmed with curiosity. “No, no, this is amazing,” Brendon insisted. “How do you find time to do all this shit while you’re touring? Does Brian know? Oh my god, does Pete know? Can you teach me how to do it? Can I help? I want to save the world, too! Let me help!”
Gerard and Frank exchanged another look. It was totally unreadable, except Frank looked annoyed about something.
“This is probably how it fucking starts,” Frank muttered.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Gerard replied. “Maybe this is-”
“If we let him in, next thing you know it’s going to be little emo kids everywhere we look.”
Brendon couldn’t stop himself from bouncing in the chair a little bit. “Please let me help. C’mon. Please. Please.”
“I think we have to,” Gerard sighed. He sounded unhappy. Brendon didn’t care. He was going to get to be a super spy and save the world and shit.
Frank shook his head, but he shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Okay, Brendon. Here’s the deal.” He smiled. It was a little wolfish. Brendon was a little scared, but he was more totally fucking psyched.
\ \ \
Brendon ran in to the sound check a full hour late. Spencer was so angry his face was bright red. “Jesus fuck, Brendon!” he yelled. “Where the fuck have you been? We called you seventeen fucking times! I can fire you. Ryan can sing!”
“Uh,” said Jon. “Dude. Chill.”
Ryan blinked at Brendon a couple of times. “Are you okay?” he said.
It was probably a give away that Brendon hadn’t said anything in almost a full minute, including an apology. His head was swimming. He had Gerard and Frank from My Chemical Romance programmed in to his Sidekick, along with an emergency number that would allegedly alert the Pentagon to a world crisis and maybe get the secret branch of the marines to show up wherever he was. It was in his phone under ‘Becky.’ Brendon was both excited to the point of incoherence and terrified to touch the stupid thing, which had made texting Spencer back difficult.
“Sorry,” said Brendon. “I uh. I got lost?” On the way to an alternate dimension, he didn’t add, because it would have made the band even more suspicious. He said stuff like that anyway, sometimes, but usually only when he and Jon were high.
Spencer punched him in the shoulder. “If the show tonight sucks, it will totally be your fault, Brendon, and then I am going to kill you.”
Brendon nodded and tried to look as little as possible like a person who was now partially responsible for ensuring world peace. He was pretty sure he couldn’t possibly remember all the words and play piano and wonder about the fate of the world hinging on Mikey fucking Way, all at once. If the show tonight sucked it would totally be all his fault.
\ \ \
The first thing that happened was nothing.
It was understandable, since My Chemical Romance was on tour somewhere far away, and Panic! was on a totally different tour. Brendon was busy singing, and helping Jon choose flip-flops for on stage, and playing guitar hero with Spencer to see how mad he could make Ryan. Brendon had a problem where sometimes he did stupid things to get Ryan’s attention
Brendon was totally overcome with curiosity, however, and ended up spending tons of time checking the internet for My Chem news, just in case. Just in case of what Brendon wasn’t sure about, but if those guys were really sneaking all over the world tracking down bad guys and solving crimes someone would have noticed, right?
He waited for his phone to ring, or ninjas to sneak on their tour bus and kill everyone, or something to happen, but for two weeks nothing did. Brendon got edgier and edgier. He was worried that the guys were going to go back on their word and not let him be an international ninja spy, or whatever the fuck they were.
When something finally did happen Brendon was fast asleep. He was dreaming that he was at Disneyworld and he was performing in one of the shows, but he was also watching the show with Ryan, holding Ryan’s hand and explaining that Mickey Mouse really loved the keytar. It didn’t matter because the dream shifted so that Brendon was trying to get Ryan to kiss him, and then his Sidekick started beeping. Brendon’s brain decided that the beeping was a bomb that was going to go off and kill everyone in the theme park, and Brendon tried to warn Ryan without using the words ‘bomb’ or ‘spy’ or ‘Gerard Way.’
Spencer threw a shoe at his bunk. “Turn it off,” he ordered, mostly into his pillow.
Frank had been pretty clear that Brendon wasn’t supposed to turn his sidekick off, on pain of death. Possibly actual, real, literal death. “Sorry,” Brendon whispered back, hitting mute. He blinked at the screen for a minute.
u up said the screen. It was from Frank.
Brendon considered texting back ‘no.’ Then he considered how Frank Iero would kill him. Y he typed back instead.
b will talk 2 u aftr teh show 2mrw. tell emo! at the rennfaire u r busy.
b?
u shuld prbbly strt working out 2 lazy
what???? Brendon texted. There weren’t enough question marks in the world.
cu l8r bb
Brendon almost clapped out loud in glee, and stopped just in time, because Spencer would not be amused. He could totally start working out, if that was what would help him be a super spy. He had really cool sneakers already.
“Are you done?” Ryan moaned. “You text really loudly, dude.”
“Shut up, Ross,” Brendon replied automatically. “Hey, I totally dreamed we were on a date at a Disney theme park. And there was a bomb, and you-”
“Brendon, shut up,” Ryan ordered. He made a big deal about rolling over loudly and rearranging the pillows in his bunk.
Sometimes Brendon got a little bummed out. He’d had a secret crush on Ryan, way back a million years ago. It was really amazing he’d managed to get over it so well. “You know you love me,” Brendon said.
“I’d love you to shut up,” Spencer groaned.
Brendon grinned to himself. It only lasted a minute, though. He spent the rest of the night wondering what the hell Frank was talking about.
\ \ \ \
The show the next night sucked. Okay, it didn’t suck like back when they were first signed and none of them really knew what they were doing, but it sucked a little. Brendon was distracted, and Ryan kept frowning at him.
“Did you honestly fucking forget the words?” Spencer demanded. “Should we make you cue cards? Would you like us to write them on your arm for you?”
“I just fumbled them for a second,” Brendon said. “Why don’t you sing, if it’s so easy, Spencer? Oh, that’s right, because you sound like a dying water buffalo. Shut up.”
“Your face,” said Spencer, disgruntled.
“Your mom’s face.”
“Who wants to go back to the hotel?” Jon asked. That was his not-very-subtle way of trying to stop the fight by asking who wanted to get high.
“Uh,” said Brendon, looking around. Someone was supposed to be meeting him. “I think I have to, uh. Do stuff.”
Ryan frowned. He was all sweaty, which was a weirdly good look on him. Not that Brendon had noticed. “Like what?” he asked. “What’s stuff?”
“I don’t know,” Brendon said honestly.
Zack stuck his head in the dressing room. “Brendon?” he said. “Someone’s here to talk to you.”
Brendon didn’t bounce or clap or yell ‘Yay!’ or anything. He did look guiltily at Ryan, though. Ryan frowned. “Who’s here to talk to you?” Ryan asked.
“No one,” Brendon said, because he didn’t know. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Spencer,” Ryan said plaintively. “Who is Brendon hanging out with that’s not us?”
Spencer shrugged. Brendon snuck out past Zack and down the hall.
There was a doorway he wasn’t expecting, where a hand shot out and grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked. Brendon windmilled and almost fell, and when he caught himself he was nose-to-nose with Bob Bryar.
Frank Iero was scary in that ‘hi I’m crazy’ kind of way, but Bob was just genuinely a guy who could punch the teeth out of your head. “Hi,” Brendon squeaked. “Um. You’re B, right?”
Bob rolled his eyes. “We don’t let Frank make up the code names anymore,” he said. “How you doin’? Totally freaking out? Gerard said you might be totally freaking out.”
“Oh my god, is that why you call him ‘Gee’?” Brendon asked. “It’s like, a super secret spy codename, right?”
“We call him that because his name starts with the letter G,” said Bob. “Are you freaking out?”
“I am cool as a cucumber,” Brendon lied. “Should I be freaking out? Is something going on? Oh my god, is there a nuclear war going on? Are you guys totally stopping nuclear terrorists right now? Do you-”
Bob put a hand over Brendon’s mouth. Brendon shut up. “You’re freaking out,” Bob said. He sighed. “Fine. Listen, we talked about it, and we decided there’s a slim chance we might use you for some stuff eventually, and that means you have to learn things. Okay?”
Bob wasn’t the most enlightening speaker ever. Brendon nodded. He was so fucking excited. Bob moved his hand. “Stuff like what?” Brendon whispered. “I don’t have to kill anyone, do I? I’m a vegetarian, I don’t think I can kill anyone.”
“Why couldn’t it have been Spencer?” Bob muttered. Brendon wasn’t especially insulted. Spencer would probably have been really good at all this shit. “No, you don’t have to kill anyone. I’m just gonna show you some things that might save someone’s life at some point. Like yours.”
“Here?” Brendon asked, looking around. “At the venue?”
Bob grinned. Bob had a really friendly grin, usually, but this time it looked a tiny bit feral. “Not exactly,” he said.
\ \ \ \
“We’re on the roof? Cool!” Brendon said. The parking lot around the venue was pretty empty, and anyone who might have seen them was already totally drunk. “Will it spoil your plan if I fall off? What are we doing up here? Are we going to rappel down, like Batman?”
“The idea,” said Bob patiently, “is that no one will interrupt us. We do this all the time, and if Gerard’s never fallen to his death I’m not that worried about you.” He took off his jacket and stretched his arms. “It’ll hopefully never happen,” he said, “but have you ever been in a fight?”
Brendon didn’t particularly like the sound of that. “I’ve had people offer to kick my ass,” he said. “Usually I just run away.”
“Good instincts,” said Bob. “Okay, so you’ve never taken a punch?”
“Of course I’ve gotten punched. I’m the youngest of five kids. Plus, I live with Spencer on a tiny bus. I’ve gotten punched like a million times.”
“Not by anyone who wanted to kill you,” Bob said grimly. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to show you how to duck a punch, and then how to throw one. And then next week, when we have a couple of days off, Mikey is going to show you some of his gadgets.”
“Mikey has gadgets?” Brendon frowned. “I thought he was kind of… Isn’t he a little bit of a space case?” That was the impression Brendon had gotten lurking on the fansites.
“Mikey makes all our stuff,” Bob said. “You know how Gerard says he’s a genius? This is what he means.”
“Didn’t he take a heater in to the shower one time, though?” Brendon argued.
Bob shrugged. “He forgot it wasn’t the one he’d rigged up to work underwater.” He held up his hands for a second, balling them in to fists. Brendon was not super enthusiastic about the part of the evening where he got punched by Bob Bryar.
“Are you seriously about to punch me?” Brendon asked. “Can we maybe skip this part and you can teach me how to be a ninja or something? Oh, I know. Can you show me how to hack computers? We can take down the military-industrial complex. It’ll be awesome!”
“That’s really more Ray’s thing. I’m not going to punch you if you duck,” said Bob patiently. “Okay, when I swing like this, you move. Like this.” He put a hand on Brendon’s shoulder and shoved. “Got it?”
“Uh. Sure!” said Brendon.
Bob frowned. “Duck,” he said curtly, and swung.
Brendon ducked. Or he tried to duck, but he didn’t duck enough, because Bob totally clipped him on the shoulder anyway, and it hurt like fuck. “Ow,” he said. Bob swung again. Brendon jumped backward. Bob moved forward so fast Brendon couldn’t even see him, and then, bam, Brendon was on his ass on the roof, and he couldn’t breathe because Bob had nailed him right in the stomach.
“I said duck,” Bob said.
“I…” Brendon wheezed. “I did!”
“Okay, well… Duck better, then,” Bob ordered. “C’mon, get up. We haven’t even started yet.”
Brendon got to his feet. “Aren’t you on tour somewhere really far away from here?” he asked plaintively.
“We had the night off, and Gerard’s worried you’re going to get hurt,” Bob said. “Duck.”
“Wait, why does Gerard think-” Brendon started, and then he was on his ass again. “Ow, motherfucker, warn a guy!”
“I said duck,” Bob said. “You are really bad at this, you know that?”
“Well then maybe you could swing a little less hard,” Brendon complained. “I’m new to being a super world-saving secret spy, or whatever you guys do when you’re not writing songs about vampires, jeez.”
Bob rolled his eyes. “Are you any better at hitting?”
He absolutely wasn’t. “Maybe,” said Brendon. “I’m not standing up unless you’re going to stop punching me.”
Bob put his hands on his hips. “You’re going to do exactly what I say, okay, because otherwise I’m gonna start swinging for real. I know fifteen ways to kill you, and not a single one will leave any evidence.”
Brendon stared. There was a chance Bob was joking. Bob wasn’t blinking, though, or smiling, or doing anything that might indicate he was kidding. “Um,” said Brendon. “I will do exactly as you say, I guess.”
It turned out Brendon was just as bad at the hitting part as the ducking part. The first time he took a swing he just managed to hurt his own hand. The second time, Bob blinked and said, “Maybe you didn’t understand. Hit me.” The third time Bob rolled his eyes and said, “God, I thought this was bad with Mikey.” That made Brendon feel a little bit better, oddly; there was no way he was as bad at this as Mikey Way was. It wasn’t possible.
Bob made him punch a few thousand times, until his hands were totally numb and his arms felt like lead. Then Bob said, “Okay, let’s try flipping people,” and grabbed Brendon, knocking him flat again.
Just about at the point where Brendon was sure he was going to die even if Bob didn’t kill him, Bob stopped. “Sit,” he said, pointing to the roof. Brendon dropped gratefully. His palms and knees were totally skinned from falling, he was bruised everywhere, and his heart was pounding in his ears. “So you probably have some questions,” Bob said, sitting down next to him.
Brendon had thousands of questions. “Yeah,” he said. “Can I start with ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I mean, it’s totally the coolest thing I ever found out accidentally, including the time I walked in on Ryan making LOL cats on his laptop. That was hilarious, by the way.”
Bob cracked a smile. He was way less scary when he was smiling. “That’s how we all felt,” Bob said. “One minute Gerard was in rehab, the next he’d volunteered us to be an elite crime-fighting team.” Bob shrugged, clearly saying That’s how Gerard is, you know? Brendon was glad he only had to deal with Ryan, who was kind of weird, but not that weird. “Gerard is pretty bad at the hand-to-hand parts, too, but he’s a genius at foiling evil schemes and last-minute rescues.”
“Not to be rude or anything,” Brendon said, “but Mikey’s bad at fighting too, right?”
Bob laughed. “Yeah, we mostly don’t let Mikey come with us if we think there might be violence. I swear to god, he’ll just lean against the wall and let us handle it, and then afterwards he yawns and goes, ‘Well, that sucked.’” He shook his head.
“Can I go instead of Mikey?” Brendon asked. “I will totally kick ass, honestly. I would be an amazing spy. I’m really great at sneaking around the bus, which I have to do a lot because Ryan can only write in total silence. Plus, sometimes Spencer gets these headaches, you know, and I don’t disturb him at all.” There were other times, of course, like when Brendon had accidentally set the microwave on fire, and that one time he’d gotten caught sniffing Ryan’s sweatshirt - for totally uncreepy reasons, okay, the way Ryan smelled cheered him up a little bit - and Ryan had walked in and looked pretty horrified. Brendon wasn’t going to mention that to Bob, though.
Bob considered for a minute. “Normally, I think, we’d leave you out of it,” Bob said. “But maybe. Gerard said… Well, I can’t tell you about that. But yeah, it’s better if you know how.”
Brendon’s heart sank. “I can be really useful,” he insisted. “Honestly.”
“At the very least you’re persistent,” Bob conceded.
“Yeah,” Brendon agreed. “And that is just one of my many virtues, dude. I’m awesome. Try me.”
Bob hesitated. “This is the deep end, okay, Brendon? There are a lot of bad people and they’re doing really bad things. I’m just showing you how to swim, because there are sharks. Or something. I don’t know. Metaphors are Gerard’s thing.” Bob rolled his eyes. “This gig is dangerous. There are lots of really nasty people.”
“I can handle it,” said Brendon. That seemed probably true.
“Way worse than what you’re thinking,” Bob said. “Drugs and murder and extortion and weapons-running and… You might get hurt, and you’re just a kid.”
“I’m not,” said Brendon. “I’ll be fine. I promise. I can get way better at all this stuff you’re showing me.”
“It’s just for the last resort. You know, if you get caught or in trouble.” Bob sounded ominous, but Brendon wasn’t going to let that keep him down.
“Can I tell the band?” Brendon asked. “Spencer would be so excited about this, dude, you have no idea.” He’d also probably be better at it than Brendon was.
“No way,” Bob said. “We’re responsible for some really important secrets. Gerard and Frank got in so much trouble for telling you. The fewer people know, the less likely any of you are to get kidnapped or tortured.”
“Uh. Okay.” Brendon shuddered. “I keep my mouth shut, in that case,” he said. Kidnapping and torture sounded bad. Brendon was against them.
Bob looked skeptical. “Don’t do anything until you know what you’re doing, okay?” said Bob. “Just… Keep your head down and your eyes open. Maybe try to get in better shape. You could go running or something. Try some weight lifting. I thought the guys in our band were small, but you’re practically an elf.”
“Hey!” Brendon protested.
Bob gave him a look. “Pocket sized,” he said firmly. “Like Frank. And dude, if we know you know, someone else is going to find out eventually. Be ready. You don’t have to be able to kill a room full of ninjas with your bare hands or anything, but you have to at least know how to duck.”
“Can you teach me to kill a room full of ninjas with my bare hands?” Brendon asked hopefully.
“Probably not tonight, no,” Bob said. “Break’s over. Get up. I’m going to show you a drop and roll.”
Brendon tried big puppy-dog eyes. It totally usually worked on Spencer.
Bob just stared at him. “I live with Gerard,” he said. “Stop that.”
Brendon let himself be pulled to his feet. “How am I going to explain all the bruises and contusions?” he asked.
“Tell them… I don’t know. Tell them you’re clumsy or something.” Bob shrugged. “Okay, hold your arm like that, and-” Bob really was a fucking ninja. One minute he was standing there, and the next minute he’d kicked Brendon’s feet out from under him and Brendon was flat on his back, with the wind knocked out of him, staring at the sky.
“Ow,” Brendon whimpered. That could have gone better. He was never going to impress Bob at this rate.
“So now that you know what’s coming, this time try and avoid it,” Bob said. He grinned.
It was a long night.
\ \ \
Everyone was asleep when Brendon got back, but he was so sore he had trouble climbing in to his bunk and he accidentally stepped on Jon’s hand. “Muh,” said Jon, and stuck his head out from behind the curtain. “What the fuck?” he asked. “It’s like, four in the morning already.”
“Yeah,” said Brendon, kicking off his sneakers and wiggling out of his jeans.
“You... You look kind of like you got beat up,” said Jon.
Brendon froze. “No,” he said after a second. “I uh. I fell down some stairs. You know me, I’m so clumsy. Ha ha ha.”
Jon frowned. “Be more careful,” he said, and rolled back in to his bunk.
Brendon was annoyed that that had worked, actually. He tripped over stuff sometimes, sure, but that was exuberance, mostly, not clutziness. He dropped his jeans on the floor and tried to find a way to lie down that didn’t make him hurt.
His sidekick beeped to life. b sez ur bad but not 2 bad
All the glamour of being texted by Frank Iero was gone. ur mom is not 2 bad Brendon wrote back, rolled over, and went to sleep.
\ \ \
Ryan glared. “I don’t get it,” he said, for the third time.
“Okay, Ry, when a mommy loves a daddy very much-” Spencer started, not looking up from his book.
Ryan threw a shoe at him. He missed by a mile, and Spencer laughed. “Who were you hanging out with, Brendon, and how did you fall down the stairs?” Ryan crossed his arms.
“I have friends in town,” Brendon said. “Mormon friends. You wouldn’t like them. And I fell down the stairs the way people fall down the stairs. My shoe was untied.” He shrugged, and then winced, because it hurt to move. The other problem was that he was bursting with things he couldn’t tell Ryan, but he really wanted to. It made him twitchy, which made him seem suspicious.
“You fell down the stairs and then went for a run this morning,” Ryan said skeptically.
“It has been brought to my attention that I’m getting a little chubby,” Brendon said. “We don’t all have your girlish figure, Ross.”
“He was totally hooking up with groupies,” Jon said. He was trying to read over Spencer’s shoulder, and Spencer kept elbowing him in the side. Every time Spencer turned the page Jon complained, “I’m not done reading that yet!” and Spencer sighed and flipped back.
“I don’t hook up with groupies,” Brendon said piously. “That would be wrong. They’re all, like, ten years old.”
Spencer snorted. “You’re like ten years old.”
“I’m older than you are.”
“Prove it.”
No birth certificate was going to solve that argument, so Brendon punched Spencer in the thigh, instead. He tried to lead with his knuckles and put his shoulder behind it, like Bob said. Spencer put his book down for just a second and glared, which was a good sign.
Ryan pouted and flipped his scarf. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I don’t know what you were doing, but I don’t believe you.”
Brendon tried not to be delighted that Ryan seemed sort of jealous. His crush on Ryan was really old news, and he was totally over it, but sometimes when Ryan smiled at him he still got butterflies in his stomach, and when Ryan got possessive it made him a tiny bit giddy. “Okay,” he said. “Whatever. Yo, Spence, want to play Guitar Hero?”
“Sure,” said Spencer, putting his book down.
“Hey!” Jon protested.
“Read it yourself,” Spencer said, getting off the couch. He grabbed the game case and the cords.
Ryan pointed a finger at Brendon. “I’m leaving, because if I have to hear those songs one more time I’ll kill everyone on this bus,” he said. How did he manage to sound so threatening in a monotone? “But I’m gonna be watching you.”
“Yeah,” said Brendon. “My ass is pretty distracting.”
Ryan made a huffy noise and stomped out. It was good that he was gone, though; Brendon was absolutely not going to crack and blurt out his giant secret. Unless Ryan wanted him to.
\ \ \
Panic!’s interviews had been cancelled for the afternoon and everyone was just hanging out on the bus, watching Star Wars for the seven-hundredth time. Jon and Ryan were a little bit high, which meant they got giggly and fell asleep on each other before Luke even got off Tatooine. Brendon wished Ryan were sleeping on him, and then told himself firmly that he didn’t care.
Spencer always watched movies really intensely. When Brendon’s Sidekick beeped, all he said was, “Jesus, turn it off, Brendon, you’re not Ryan.”
The screen said meet me outside
Brendon frowned. when?
rite now dumass
Brendon looked up, half expecting to see Frank’s face in the window of the bus. That would have been creepy as shit. “I’m gonna go get some air,” he said to Spencer, who barely looked up. Brendon eased out from underneath Jon’s legs and headed for the door.
They were parked in a parking lot, which was mostly empty. Brendon stuck his head out and looked around, but he didn’t see anyone. Frank was probably pretty hard to spot from a distance, what with being a foot tall and all, but there was no one around with crazy tattoos. Brendon frowned at his sidekick.
“Hi-YAH!” hollered a voice right in his ear, and then Brendon was shoved face-first into the side of the bus, with his arm twisted up behind his back.
“Oww,” said Brendon.
“You were caught totally off guard!” Frank said, delighted. “Sucks to be you. Also, dude, you have to ditch the glasses. Those are no good in case of emergency.”
Bob hadn’t shown him what to do in case of a sudden Frank attack. “Get off,” he said, trying to twist away. Frank just giggled. Brendon had seen Miss Congeniality about twenty times, so he stomped backward, aiming for Frank’s instep.
“Motherfucker!” Frank yelped, letting go. “Ow!” He looked surprised and cautiously pleased. “That was pretty good, actually.”
Brendon tugged his t-shirt back down and pretended his heart hadn’t been racing in pure ‘what if Frank’s about to kill me’ terror. “Yeah, well, I’m tough,” he said.
Frank giggled. “You’re really not.”
“I could be,” Brendon insisted. God, he had to be at least as tough as Gerard Way, didn’t he? Sure, Bob was bad-ass, but they were not a band that was naturally intimidating, okay, no matter how much eyeliner they wore.
“But you’re not. I’m gonna show you some stuff. Come on.” He turned and jogged off across the parking lot.
“I have to be back by five,” Brendon said, running to catch up. “We have sound check.”
Frank grinned. “This won’t take too long,” he said. His grin was scarier than Bob’s, by far. “We’re just gonna blow some shit up.”
Brendon stopped. “You mean… Wait, literally blow shit up?” he asked. He tried not to sound excited. He probably failed.
Frank looked back over his shoulder. His grin was getting nastier, somehow. “That’s the only way I roll.”
\\\
Brendon was totally incredulous that anyone let Frank Iero set off bombs, no matter how small and self-contained they were. Frank just enjoyed it so much.
“Okay, this is C4,” said Frank. “We’re not going to use much of it, because I think even your boyband might get suspicious if you went back with no eyebrows.”
“We’re not a boyband,” Brendon said, rolling his eyes.
“Watch,” said Frank. He did something with wires and buttons and then tossed the whole bundle in the air, and - BOOM.
“Cool!” Brendon said.
Frank giggled. “Okay, this time you push the button when I say ‘clear.’ It’ll be awesome. Ready?”
“What if someone’s walking by right now? And we kill them, and then the headline tomorrow is ‘Panic! in the Parking Lot’ and I go to jail?” Brendon asked. He played with the button for a second. He’d always sort of wished Panic! had more fire and explosions on stage.
Frank yelled, “Clear!”
Brendon bit his lip and pushed the button.
There was an awesome explosion.
“Cool,” said Brendon again. “That was… Wow!”
“Yes!” Frank yelled. “This is the best part of being a secret spy.”
Brendon considered for a second. He didn’t want to sound childish or crazy around Frank, but… “Frank?” he said. “Can I blow more stuff up?”
Frank beamed. “Of course,” he assured him, and handed Brendon more wires and things.
They went through the whole supply of C4 Frank had brought with him. Brendon didn’t ask how Frank had gotten it there, or why he wasn’t on tour with his band, because he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer. Brendon almost got his eyebrows singed off one time when Frank yelled ‘clear’ too soon. It was totally fun. It would have been better if Spencer had been there, critiquing their explosion technique, or if Jon had been there, because everything was more fun with Jon Walker, or even if Ryan had been there, acting like he didn’t think it was cool at all. Ryan could be kind of a buzzkill. An amazing, funny, interesting, adorable buzzkill, though, so it barely counted at all.
\ \ \ \
“You’ve been acting really weird lately,” Ryan said suddenly, sticking his face in to Brendon’s bunk.
Brendon looked up from his laptop, closing the tab really quickly. Ryan didn’t need to know that Brendon was looking up pages on guns. It would probably have worried him. He looked worried enough already.
“I have?” Brendon asked. “Really?”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You’re up to something,” he said. “It’s not my birthday. It had better not be a fucking surprise party again.”
“One time, Ryan. It was one time. I promised it wouldn’t happen again.”
“I’m scarred for life. Tell me what you’re up to.”
Brendon tried to sit up, but he smacked his head against the roof of the bunk instead. “I’m not up to anything,” he insisted. Now his head hurt. He was already over-tired and a little grumpy. It had been two days since he’d heard from any of the My Chem guys. If they’d forgotten about him, he was going to cry.
Ryan wasn’t convinced. He crossed his arms. “You are completely up to something,” he said. “I know you, okay? I know you.”
Brendon got a weird, tight feeling in his chest. If Ryan had really known him, he would have known about Brendon’s ridiculous crush. It was the only thing he’d ever managed to keep to himself in all the years he’d known Ryan.
“I’m really not up to anything,” Brendon said. He was only marginally good at lying, but it was going to have to be enough.
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “When I figure it out,” he said, “I’m gonna be pissed.”
“Yeah?” Brendon said. He needed this conversation to be over. “Well, we could always use a few more songs about betrayal and backstabbing, I guess.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan demanded.
Brendon shrugged. “Or maybe some songs about paranoia. Y’know, if you feel like writing.”
Ryan just stared for a second. “You don’t even-What the fuck is-Fine. Fine.” He stomped in to the kitchen.
Jon rolled over and stuck his head out of his bunk. “What the fuck, dude?” he said.
“Ryan’s nosey,” Brendon said. “Whatever. I’m not up to anything.”
“You have been kind of squirrelly. What’s up with the fitness routine?”
“Nothing,” said Brendon firmly. “Life in a bus eating takeout and junk food all the time is getting to me, okay?”
Jon held his hands up. “Dude, chill,” he said. “Hostile much?”
Brendon felt bad. It wasn’t Jon’s fault he was becoming a trained killer spy ninja, or that he hadn’t been sleeping well, or that Ryan was a nosey bastard who had trampled all over Brendon’s heart by accident and never even noticed. “Sorry,” Brendon muttered. “I’m tired.”
“Get some sleep. We already have a moody diva on the bus. I can’t handle two of you wearing rose vests.” Jon leaned up and patted Brendon’s leg. “If something was up, you could tell me. You know that, right?”
Brendon wished that were true. Saving the world was awesome, but it was making things awkward with the band. “Thanks,’ he said. “You know I totally love you, right?”
“Yeah,” said Jon. “I know.”
That was a relief, at least.
\ \ \
They had the afternoon off and a hotel for the night. Ryan and Spencer went shoe shopping, although they didn’t call it that anymore. They used a code phrase, because Spencer was a little sensitive about his shoe problem. Brendon was exhausted. He flopped back on the bed, luxuriating in the fact that it wasn’t moving, and there was enough space to stretch his arms out, and the blanket didn’t smell like feet or cigarettes, and Ryan wasn’t glaring at him for no reason.
And then the door opened, and there was Mikey Way, carrying a laptop and looking bored. Ray was right behind him, with Bob and Gerard. They helped themselves to the other bed and the chair.
“Uh,” said Brendon. “Hi? Did I know this meeting was happening? Where’s Frank?”
“Interview,” said Gerard, sprawling on the bed. “We figured, hey, we have a night off, let’s check in with our favorite newbie.”
Brendon couldn’t tell if he was being insulted or not. “What if Ryan and Spencer come back from the petting zoo?” he asked. It wasn’t his fault Ryan got to make up the code words.
Everyone looked at Mikey, who shrugged totally nonchalantly. “I’m tracking their Sidekicks,” he said. “I know where they are. When they get back to the hotel I’ll let everyone know.”
Brendon gaped a little bit. “You’re… Are you tracking mine, too?”
“Of course.”
“I… You can… Wow,” said Brendon after a minute. “Holy crap.”
Ray laughed. “Mikey can do anything,” he said. “So we hear you want to help.”
“I do!” Brendon blurted. He caught himself before he sounded too childish. “I would love to help you guys do… I don’t know, whatever you’re doing. I know our band doesn’t really talk about it so much, but we have a social conscience too. We totally feel ways about stuff.”
“Oh, dude,” said Gerard, lighting a cigarette, “Ray knows more about you than you do. Seriously.”
Brendon wasn’t going to tell Gerard not to smoke in the room. Mikey had probably disabled the alarms with voodoo magic or something. “You looked me up?” he said uncertainly. “You could have just called.”
“Right,” Ray said, “but this way we know everything. I have your high school permanent record, your taxes from when you worked at the Smoothie Hut, every report card you ever got, the article from the church newspaper about your third-grade solo, the email you sent to your sister about how you’re totally in love with Ryan Ross-”
Brendon’s jaw dropped. “I never,” he squeaked.
Ray and Gerard burst out laughing. Mikey was busy texting someone, and Bob didn’t seem the type to enjoy someone else’s pain.
“It was a long time ago,” Brendon said quickly. “I was drunk. I was kidding. I was kidding while I was drunk.”
Gerard and Ray high-fived. “Too easy,” Ray said. “Okay, so let’s talk about saving the world.”
Brendon tried to get his heart to stop pounding. “Yeah,” he said. His throat was all weird and tight. He didn’t care if My Chemical Romance thought he had a crush on Ryan, as long as they understood it was way over. “How can I help?”
Gerard took a long drag off his cigarette. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” he said. “But… Well. This weekend we have a mission and Mikey and Ray can’t make it.”
Brendon was so excited. “Are we saving the world?” he asked. “I am totally pysched for that, you have no idea.”
“We’re breaking and entering,” Gerard said. “Nothing too stressful for your first time, dude.”
“Oh,” said Brendon, the tiniest bit disappointed. “That makes sense.”
Gerard waved his hands around like a crazy person. “See, this is what’s fucking wrong with American culture,” he said. “You can’t just be happy about what you’re good at, and be comfortable with yourself. You always have to prove yourself, all the fucking time. No wonder we’re a nation that’s addicted to happy pills and alcohol. Why can’t we all accept who we are?”
Ray was patiently completely ignoring Gerard, so Brendon decided that was probably the safest route. “I want to help out on the breaking and entering,” he said. “I’m really stealth. I own tons of black.”
“I’m gonna show you how to shoot a gun and stuff first,” Ray said. Brendon tried not to look too excited. “And Mikey needs to mess with your Sidekick.”
Brendon looked doubtful. “Beyond just using it to stalk me, you mean?” he asked. “Because I don’t know what else you can do.”
“Watch,” said Mikey, holding up his wrist.
The bed Brendon was lying on burst in to flame.
“Holy fuck!” Brendon yelped, jumping to his feet. “How did you do that?”
“Watch,” Mikey repeated, rolling his eyes.
It still took Brendon a second. “Oh,” he said. “That’s… That’s impossible. I mean, I’m pretty sure.”
Gerard shrugged and used a blanket to beat out the little fire. He looked totally unphased by the mysterious fire and the possibility that they’d all burn to death. Brendon figured he was probably used to lighting accidental fires if he smoked lying down all the time. “He uses focused lasers,” Gerard said around his cigarette. “Do you have a coffee maker in here?”
“Sidekick,” Mikey said, sounding bored. He held out a hand.
Brendon handed it over reluctantly. It was like handing over his diary or something. Except Ray had apparently already read every email he’d ever sent, so fuck it. “What are you going to do to it?” he asked.
Mikey looked at him. “You’ll find out,” he said tonelessly.
That sounded ominous, but Brendon didn’t really have time to worry, because Ray was standing up. “C’mon,” he said. “You’ve never shot a gun before, right? This is going to take some time.”
Brendon was simultaneously excited and terrified. “Really?” he said. “That’s… That’s pretty cool, I guess.” It was hard to sound detached and cool when you felt like running around the room screaming.
“Don’t burn the place down while we’re gone,” Ray ordered.
Gerard gestured with one hand, waving a cigarette around wildly. That was not the greatest guarantee that the hotel would still be standing when they got back, in Brendon’s opinion. “I’m gonna call Frank,” said Gerard. “Let him know what’s up.”
Ray looked at Bob, and they rolled their eyes in perfect unison. “Having phone sex in someone else’s room is gross,” said Ray.
“Especially when your brother is right there,” Bob agreed. “I’m coming with.”
Brendon blinked. Did that mean Frank and Gerard were… Holy shit, My Chemical Romance had a lot of secrets. If it was possible for them, would it be possible for other people in bands to date on the down-low? Brendon had always wondered about Pete and Patrick, frankly. Not that Brendon had any interest in it personally, of course.
“Where are we going to go shooting?” he asked. “I don’t want to shoot anyone by accident. Oh, hey, do you guys have one of those firing ranges with the cardboard cut outs, like in Men in Black? That was so cool, I will totally not shoot any of the kids-”
“How would we carry that around?” Bob asked. “Jesus, you talk a lot. C’mon.”
Brendon thought that was pretty unfair. Bob lived with Gerard and Frank. There was no way Brendon talked more than the two of them. At least not put together, c’mon.
Part Two