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Gargoyles fic: Four Times Hunter Wanted to Kiss Dingo - birthday fic for mtgat
Happy birthday, mtgat! So much over the years has been all your fault. You're not only a joy to be in fandom with, you're an awesome friend (and a delightfully corrupting influence). *hugs*

Title: Four Times Hunter Wanted to Kiss Dingo, and the First Time She Finally Did
Author: dotfic
Rating: Het, Hunter/Dingo, PG-13, with just a dash of h/c
W/C: 1,200
Disclaimer: Bad Guys is published by Slave Labor Graphics, the whole Gargoyles universe is owned by Disney, and it's Greg Weisman's sandbox I'm playing in.

a/n: Written for mtgat's birthday. Thank you to amilyn for the beta-read.




Down the north corridor, left, left, through the arch, down the steps, behind the tapestry on the south wall. She had the layout memorized, took point. Dingo's annoyed grumbling snapped away into silence the moment they leapt together from the ramparts and rappelled down to the correct window.

Dangling from her wire, she hesitated with the glass cutter, the cold Cornwall coastal wind buffeting at them, whistling across the stones. She glanced at Dingo, who rolled his eyes, twitched his shoulders, and looked annoyed again. If silence weren't needed he'd be snapping at her for doubting Matrix's security system disabling abilities and make a crack about how maybe she'd rather work alone, since she was the only one who knew how to do anything right.

She cut the glass, unhooked the window latch, and then they were inside, dropping to the floor. The whole op should take fifteen minutes. Get the statue from the safe, get going. She shut the window.

The music of the party drifted to them, echoing up through many stairways. The digital readout of her watch read 08:10.

But it was Dingo who took her arm and pushed her into the alcove. A week observing the small castle, and the patrols had always been like clockwork. 08:15 on the spot, every time. Stupid, stupid. She should've accounted for the higher security levels during a party, realized there'd be a patrol more frequently than every fifteen.

Dingo ducked his head, hunching his shoulders as if to make himself smaller. She was wedged with her back against the stone wall and her front nowhere else to go but Dingo.

Steps went by them, then faded.

With all the kevlar and body armor on both of them, she probably shouldn't have been able to heart his heart beating that loudly, and probably one of them should have moved out of the alcove then, but they didn't. Dingo raised his head and she could have covered his mouth with hers, wondered if he'd taste like the coffee he was always guzzling.

The thought was gone, fast and bright as a fuse blowing. She slid past him out of the alcove and went back to work.

~*~

"Hold still." She tugged off her gloves.

He grabbed for the bottle of antiseptic. "I'll do it."

She lifted the bottle out of his reach. "I said, hold still. That's not a wound you can tend yourself."

The engines of the retrofitted Chinook hummed in the background. The box of first aid supplies slid left on the table as the craft turned.

"Like hell is isn't. Won't be the first time I've patched myself up and it won't be the last."

"You're an ass," she said.

The blade had taken him across the upper arm, sharp enough to cut through the body armor. She poured the antiseptic over the wound mercilessly; the fool needed a wake-up call and this was maybe the only way to do it.

He cursed. "That stings."

"Cry me a river." She reached for the gauze, worked on the wound more gently now. "It's your own fault, you know."

"How did this get to be my fault?" He turned his head, watching her apply the gauze, his breath warm on her bare fingers.

"If you had followed my orders--"

"You've got to me kidding me!"

"--if you had followed my orders I wouldn't have had to save your bacon. Again." She tore off a piece of surgical tape with her teeth.

"Who saved whose bacon again?" He barely waited for her to finish taping down the gauze before he was on his feet facing her.

"Fine, Dingo. Do it your way." She slammed the roll of surgical tape and the antiseptic back into the kit and banged the lid shut. "You'll be dead or in prison within a week."

He laughed, throwing his arms wide. "And what would you call this?"

"A chance," she said, her voice quiet.

She was tired of feeling like this, and tired of minding so much that he seemed to care less and less lately whether he made it through each mission in one piece or not.

She waited for the come back, the insult.

He lowered his arms to his sides, lines of his face relaxing. "Hunter..."

"I give orders for a reason," she went on, brisk, and held her ground even though he was standing too close. Something in the hollow of her belly ached. "You won't always like them but I need you to follow them."

She turned, and his fingers closed around her wrist.

Then the door slid open, letting in Matrix and Fang. She tugged free before Fang could make a smart remark.

~*~

Damn him. Damn him. She'd like to hit him so hard his mustache would go flying off.

In the darkened hotel room, she kicked off the sheets, went into the bathroom, splashed her face with cold water, and leaned a palm against the cool, pale marble.

So he was an intruder in her dreams now, which was so bloody unfair. Big warm hands and hungry mouth and hers just as eager, fingers sliding along his back, her body arching to meet him, his voice a low rumble in her ear.

As if it was his fault she was dreaming of it. She whispered a curse and looked at herself in the mirror, at the water dripping off her pale, exposed face.

~*~

"You ever think about what's next?" Dingo asked, while they waited for a pick-up on the slopes of Kita-dake.

The swords that had started a light weight on her back now made her shoulders ache. "What do you mean?"

"I mean --" he stepped in behind her, his body blocking the wind, and his gloved hands were on her shoulders. "After we're done playin' at being heroes." His fingers began to knead at her tight muscles through the kevlar.

She stiffened and almost pulled away; but after this mission, her joints ached and whatever he was doing, it felt good.

"Maybe we're never done." She turned her head, looked up at him. The new scar under his jaw had healed clean. "Maybe that's not how it works." She closed her eyes as he kept rubbing her shoulders.

"Figure we saved a dozen, near twenty lives." Dingo's fingers dug in deeper, and his finger brushed the exposed skin of her cheek. "Not a bad day's work."

His chin rested on top of her head and she let herself lean while they waited.

~*~

"Harry."

He froze halfway to the door, the line of his shoulders and back going rigid. She hadn't directly addressed him with his real name since she'd tried to arrest him.

Robyn reached up and unfastened her mask, held it dangling down along her thigh as he turned.

Two urgent steps and he'd reached her, but she was the one who had to touch him first. With her free hand she tugged his head down, and kissed him. His hands splayed across her lower back, pulling her close like she'd float away from him if he didn't.

She smiled against his mouth, heard and felt him laughing softly as the mask fell from her fingers.

~end