He shrugs a little bit. It's late and it's been a very, very long day and right now he's not in the mood to be subtle. "Too late to back out now. Might as well make it convincing."

"Convincing enough for the job. That's it. That's all this can be."

Why the hell does it sound so flat when it comes out of her mouth?

She tries again. "This wasnt anything more than that, Carter. Don't be a fool and think otherwise."

There. Good. The hard edge in her voice has returned. 

Maybe it's the sheer shock of everything that's happened, maybe it's Usmaan's dodgy smuggled whisky finally burning through, maybe it's the way the moonlight plays off her skin, but he finds that he will not, cannot, play this game right now. 

"Bull-fucking-shit."

He was there. When you're around Raina you can almost start to believe in her soft slippery upside-down spin on the world, but then you step outside and look into her eyes and it was all just simple all along. She kissed him. She wasn't pretending. Either time.

Fuck it. Fuck this. Fuck all the lies.

"You can keep on running and lying I guess. Maybe all your life, God knows you're good at it. But the real world's gonna catch you up at the end. You wanna spend your whole life never doing anything for real? There's fuckin' teenage virgins lived more life than you, Raina, 'cause they meant it, all of it."

Her laugh is wickedly sharp and stings, because whatever is about to come out of her mouth will slice him open.

"This coming from the boy whose position in the government he owes to his father? The same one that sold him to be a science experiment?" Her laugh is mocking.

"I would much rather tell my own lies than have them told for me. That's all this world is, Carter. One deception for another."

He almost sways under the force of it.

-sharp like broken glass or spiderwebs are sharp-

And it just keeps coming out of his mouth. 

"Yeah. Life ain't fair. Daddy's boy gets the top job, the spooks cut you up and put freaky shit inside you, the Brits kick the shit out your whole country, shit fucking happens, Raina, get used to it. Can't say you guys wouldn't do the same. Go on now, run off and play pretend. 'Sgonna bite you in the pretty little ass sooner or later."

It takes him about three seconds to regret it, as he's storming away, but by then it's too late.

Raina stares after him, flabbergasted, lost for words and a little too tired to be able to come up with something just as cutting, but she knows how to swear like a sailor because her parents moved over from the Punjab. 

She's cursing his mother's pregnancy of him all the way home. 

Something between them turns fiery and electric after that night. They play their parts to perfection in public, and Raina relishes the tension that holds his frame hostage whenever she gets too close, as if he wants to strangle her as much as he wants to lock them both away in a room together.

She sympathises. 

By night, she works the case in archival research, running through mentions of folklore and legends of pre-Hindu communities, looking for blueprints and architectural clues from the city's underbelly. They're staying in Usmaan's house now that Carter is holding court here, and she has a room that is in conveniently close to his. She's not getting much sleep, but neither do alleycats.

If Carter's found something, he hasn't told her. That suits her just fine. She pretends she's not listening every morning when he gets into the shower after his army-enforced exercise regime. 

He's coping. Mostly. He's coping by doing his job, very very hard, pushing himself to find something, anything. But Usmaan isn't the only one who's spooked and he's still struggling to understand all the different bits of his organisation - Usmaan's smarter than he looks, or at least was before whatever the hell he fried his brain with, more important than Carter actually realised. 

He needs to nail down for sure who the hell the guys in the warehouse are, how they're linked to the Russians. He's still not sure how.

So he's also coping by working out harder than he ever really has before. He... knows he's pretty good, but... they told him not to draw attention, but... it's getting harder to think about. 

He's been running, fast, faster than he knew he could. Longer and harder. He can't find punching-bags anywhere that can take it for more than an hour, but he's got some ideas. 

He stays as far away from Khan as he can when he doesn't have to pretend. They've been lucky, there's been a lull the last few days. She seems happy to keep to herself, and he's not going to be the one to break the silence. He's not.

The thing is, there's not very many discreet workout places to be found here, and the abandoned warehouse he's settled into hasn't escaped the notice of a certain wraith. 

She's never there when he is, but there's a day when things are too confusing and he needs to burn off some extra energy and she's there. In loose trousers that are perfect for movement but not so much for stealth, but she's practicing her blade skills anyway and it's too hot to wear anything tighter.

She looks shocked to see him and stands idle, her lithe little daggers drooping. Some of his old punching bags have been refashioned as dummy targets and are bleeding sand from several wounds. Raina doesn't even have the grace to look ashamed, just flicks silky black hair over a shoulder and raises an imperious brow. 

Sprinting here would have been too conspicuous, so he's not even out of breath. His muscles almost twitch with pent-up energy. 

"What the hell are you doing here."

A smirk ghosts over her lips but she resists the urge to wear it. He broke first, obviously.

With a smooth motion she pockets her knives, turns away and settles into a fighting stance. The first two fingers of her hand, reaching out to him, beckon him to join her. 

Seriously?

You know what, fine. Fine. Fuck it. 

He'll go easy on her. Mostly. It'll still be satisfying.

He smirks, cracks his knuckles behind his back.

...Now that he's here he's not actually sure he can hit a girl-

Her leg sweeps him clean off his feet and onto his back in a flash, and her catlike chuckle echoes off the dusty walls. 

She knows he won't use his full ability on her. She wouldn't be able to handle it - she felt how hard he was trying not to bruise her ribs that one time. But it's fun to goad him out of his pride. 

She flips back easily, malleable and fluid, ready for him. Her dark eyes glitter with satisfaction. 

OK, he can hit a girl. 

He rolls to his feet more clumsily than he actually has to.  

If he were actually fighting Raina for real and not taking any chances he'd probably just charge and grab her, there's only so much skill can help you against that. 

But since he's not-

He's going to come forwards with his guard up and try to take her legs out. 

She's expecting it and dances away, twisting sharply to hit his exposed back. She twists and writhes like a snake, keeping him just out of range and relying on her fleet-footed nimbleness to keep her one step ahead of him. 

Raina tuts, and slips through his guard to his other side. "You're not even trying, Agan," she pouts, her voice pitched so sweetly that it's grating. 

His mouth twists. "Don't wanna hurt you too bad, dollface."

And with that he whirls and knocks both of her wrists away so fast his hands blur and shoves and bears her up against the wall with his hand at her throat. 

Raina lets out a sharp cry of surprise that gets stuck in her throat before she can get it all out. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown wide, shifting under his hands, but there's no way she's getting out of his grip. 

Her pulse beats harder under his fingers, speeding frenetically.

There's concrete at her back and the smell of him, the rush of blood to the head, and all of a sudden it's that night again and her legs are wrapped around his waist, her hands digging into his golden hair like she'll find what she's been missing, and his kiss is magnetic and she can't pull away. 

She's thought about that night far, far too many times. When she sees him glower at her over a glass of something in his strong hands, when she catches sight of his bare shoulders after a long day's business. What might have happened if she hadn't stopped them. What she might have done. 

Except she did, obviously, and she walked away, and he wouldn't let her, so she'd said whatever she could to get him to leave her behind. It was better that way. 

His gaze darkens, and his hand tightens a little around her throat - tighter and tighter, gradually, very, very carefully, but no more escapable than gravity. 

His eyes have a silvery sheen. The dim light from broken windows far overhead glints on the hard lines of his face and the swell of his muscles where they tremble with restrained power. And he towers over her. 

He's big and unsubtle and he acts first and thinks later but he's not, actually, stupid. 

In this moment, he sees her. 

"Where are you going to run now?" 

Why can't he just be stupid? Why does he have to be so smart?

She can't give him this. She can't even give herself this. Allah knows that however bad his father is, her is worse. There's no way this plays out fine. 

She drops his gaze, tapping his arm to tap out. 

Her chest heaves with her breathing. It's not from the sparring. 

He tilts her chin back up with his thumb, and smirks. 

For a long moment, he doesn't let go. 

And then he draws back suddenly, faster than a man his size ought to move, settling back into a casual fighting stance as though nothing happened. 

She steps forward easily, but there's tension in her frame where before it was languid. He's rattled her, more than enough to distract her. 

Raina watches him for a moment, burying the momentary urge to touch him, and leaps. She's trying to bring him down by wrapping her thighs around his neck. 

He's seen her do that before and there is no way it should work in real life - God's sake, she's hitting people crotch-first - but somehow it does.

Thing is, though - it relies on her full bodyweight, at high speed, being too much for the muscles that keep him standing up to support. 

Which...

...if he doesn't try to duck, but leans into it...

It isn't.

The blow still staggers him, but he can whirl around with her momentum and -

He grabs her, wrapping his arms around her thighs to keep her from choking him out with her legs, wobbles- 

Straightens. 

She is, actually, in a weird way, pinned there. 

Stalemate.

Raina huffs, sitting up straight with some difficulty. He's got her weight but it balances precariously between places he can touch, and places he definitely can't. 

"You're just going to block everything and be annoying today, aren't you?" She asks, dropping into a backbend to release down to the ground again. 

He lets her go, after a second. Cracks a grin. "Nah, sweetheart, you know I'm a reasonable guy." He is done, he's not just going to sit here and take this. "You wanna try it again, I'll take the fall for you. Let you get on top if you want."

Raina looks suspiciously at him. He's sure to have an angle or some sarcasm here. And there's a small part of her, the one that feels like a live wire when they touch, that wants to find out what he'll do. 

She takes a running leap and comes at him again, light as air on her feet. 

All right, time to move. 

The thing Raina relies on is that she's - not always faster but nimbler, she has less to move and a shorter distance to move it, she sort of slips through the cracks, uses his own movements against him. Some kind of aikido bullshit, he doesn't know. It's how she can land blows on him. 

So instead-

The thing about big men is that nobody expects them to be quick. 

He gives ground quickly, too quickly, ducking, she's all up-front offence because nobody ever fights carefully against a girl half their size and that's what gets them killed but she's probably not used to-

She overextends just a fraction, and suddenly his whole weight is dragging her down to the ground and her arms are pinned to her sides by his. 

"Told you," he breathes into her ear.