Chapter Text
Baby stood with his hands stuffed firmly in his pockets, thumbs hooked into the worn lining of the denim, rocking slightly on his heels as he watched Doc scrawl something onto a sticky note in front of him.
Around him, the warehouse office still smells faintly of that motor oil he had spilled in here last week, and the bleak smell of chemicals that Doc tried using to clean it up.
He's still got the bruises on his head from that fiasco. Probably the imprint of rings too.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, one of them flickering on and off just enough to be irritating.
The faint scratching of pen on paper was just audible over the muffled sounds of the city streets outside and the bass from his earbuds. The otherwise silence of the recently vacated warehouse was only disturbed by Doc's quiet grumbling - mutterings under his breath as he wrote.
He's itching to leave like the rest of the crew. They had cleared out minutes ago, their laughter and arguments fading down the corridor as they took their cut of the cash, their bags swinging over their shoulders.
A long day of running from the cops and hauling stolen goods across state lines makes a guy pretty tired.
A nap sounds good right about now.
When Doc finishes writing with a dramatic flourish, he peels off the note from the orange stack of square paper, holding it out to him with an expectant look.
Baby takes it without a word, looking down at the neat scribbles of Doc's cursive handwriting.
An address.
Not one he recognizes off the top of his head.
A date. Three days from now.
A time. 5 in the PM.
No further explanation.
"Be there. Don't be late," Doc says, already turning away from him, busy packing up his briefcase and mentally halfway out the door.
Baby glances at the note one more time, memorizing the details of it for good measure before folding it neatly and tucking it into his jacket pocket.
It wasn't unusual for Doc to hand him scraps of information like this - jobs written down and shoved into his hands with little flair. Pieces of paper that Baby always "accidentally" loses when he goes to do laundry.
Today had been a job.
The note means there's going to be another.
Usually, if Doc's in a good mood and not feeling too neurotic, they only have one every couple of weeks.
Usually.
He wasn't about to ask why the sudden change, though. Not his job, not his place.
So he just nods and waits for Doc to excuse him.
Doc studies him for a moment, looking at him through the clear lens of his prescription glasses. There's a slight, satisfied nod given in his direction.
"Good. Now get out of here."
Baby turns on his heels without having to be told twice, leaving Doc's office without hesitation, slinking his way to the elevators at the end of the hall. The ride down to the first floor was slow. The old cables groaned overhead in a way he stopped being concerned about years ago. The metal box rattles faintly as it descends.
He leans back against the wall, staring at his faint reflection in the scratched mirror panel. Tired eyes and a calm face stare back at him.
The doors slide open a moment later with a reluctant scrape of metal.
He passes graffiti-filled walls and security cameras he pretends don't exist, moving towards the exit, stepping out into the cool evening air. The temperature had dropped just enough to raise a faint chill against his sweat-damp collar.
The sun is already making its way below the horizon, bleeding orange and violet across the sky.
Baby adjusts his earbuds in snuggly, humming out a soft tune as he shuffles down the street in the direction of his apartment.
The city buzzed around him, noises of the nightlife starting to take hold. Car horns, laughter spilling out from a bar down the block, the rumbling footsteps of people getting off work, him included.
The soft sound of a tape whirring can be heard by passersbys if they listen closely enough.
*Click*
"Be there. Don't be late."
Doc's voice repeated back at him.
*Click*
*Whirr*
He listened to it again, unsure why he had captured it in the first place.
*Click*
*Whirr*
Whatever it was Doc wanted him to do, he'd find out soon enough.