Chapter Text
Turians on the whole were known as bad liars but that was a generalization. Macen was an excellent liar, which is what found him in the grand old Athribix ceremony hall acting like he was suppose to be there among all the high tier politicians and luminaries. Nominally he was here as part of a larger party of guests celebrating the 200th anniversary of the founding of a local community organization, but Macen was actually here to watch one man. With a drink in his hand and a comforting smile ready to disarm any suspicion, he waited and monitored the suspect moving across the hall greeting his constituents.
Governor Vellis was a tall older gentleman with light golden plates and a proud collection of military honors tied across a new grey tunic in a fashionable asari style. Seventy years of seemingly faithful Hierarchy service had brought him here to Epyrus and a very comfortable life. He had, however, ended up on their radar for possible separatist activity. The idea that he could be a sympathizer seemed mad. He had spent two decades undercover dismantling separatist operations... but maybe he had been undercover a bit too long.
The source they had gotten the tip from was solid: a salarian thief named Elcats who'd been hacking into secret logs for bank accounts, not horrible secrets. She had abandoned a tidy score in handing this over to the turian intelligence services and seemed genuinely shaken by what she'd found. And the research intel had done on that data had all checked out.
Normally this kind of thing would have gone public and moved into a trial fairly quickly but there was one element that made this Blackwatch's problem: the krogan. The logs showed Vellis and three associates- middle tier turians who hadn't been suspected as sympathizers either- as a liaison between a separatist cell on Bostra and Clan Jurdon. Bostra gives Jurdon horrifically illegal weapons tech, Jurdon comes to help 'their fellow victims of Hierarchy suppression set Bostra free.' Completely mad. The krogan would never hold up their end of the deal- a turian was a turian, they weren't invested in the cultural politics of the Unification Wars. But the fact that the Bostran separatists were idiots didn't matter. The envoy for the krogan was suppose to be on planet tonight to pick up the samples from Vellis' associates.
If the governor gave Jurdon any of what was promised it was an existential threat to all of turian society. While Macen was here lounging in a traditional green Epyrian style suit keeping an eye on the Governor in case he did anything stupid, his unit was fully geared up in the woods a few miles outside the district ready to kill everyone who showed up at the meeting site there. They'd even gotten to requisition a mounted anti-tank gun this time, just in case.
Previous targets Macen had been able to get into their heads with research and observation but this guy? So much of his life was a lie at this point even he might not know what way was up or why he'd started anymore. Macen had lost the little sympathy he had for separatist concerns about self determination in 2170 when the bastards leveled Vallum. If this guy was still helping separatists three years later? He didn't even want to understand how someone like that worked. It would be useful right now but he preferred being able to sleep at night. So Spirits knew if Vellis would panic if he was messaged that something had gone wrong. Even with the krogan connection being covered up to avoid scaring people unnecessarily the collapse of his citizenship tier while he awaited possible execution would be devastating. The idiot could try to take hostages, blow something up, kill himself. Macen had seen it happen before.
So here he was, looking sharp, pretending to nurse a drink and smile and tell jokes. His native accent and tats helped fit in perfectly, and he knew the local sports and gossip to engage and distract anyone who approached him. All in all the mix of boredom and potential disaster kept him properly right on the edge.
Which was when he spotted Avitus. Not that he knew his name then of course, just a rather handsome man with striking hazel eyes His tats matched Macen's own forest green Epyrian marks but the texture of his facial plates had Macen suspecting (correctly it turned out) that he had used a plate cream normally meant for smoothing and shining to conceal his native tattoos to better fit in. And he was watching Vellis just as closely as Macen was. Not a bodyguard, he didn't have that posture. One of the separatists here to keep an eye on him? But he wasn't tripping Macen's alarm bells and he had a very good sense about that kind of thing. Was another organization in on this? It was a puzzle that intrigued Macen, and he couldn't help but walk over.
"If I was a betting man I'd say you're in the 39th Legion." Macen started what he hoped would be an interesting conversation with.
"You'd lose. 38th." was his answer as he glanced up from where he had been watching the crowd. He'd picked an excellent balcony to do that from; offside from the flow of traffic and close attention but with clean views to the most prominent gathering areas. It was a good answer too. The 39th Legion was resident where the ceremony hall was located but the 38th was the next district over. Completely reasonable that he could be there, and just as reasonable that a resident Legion member wouldn't recognize him. Smart guy.
"Lucky I didn't put any credits on it then." Macen said as he eased to lean on the railing nearby. Below the dignitaries mingled to a popular Kihl drum tune from five years ago, oblivious to their presence.
They both gave fake names and ranks and made small talk. Avitus was brusque, no time for bullshit, but polite enough. He didn't feign an interest in clawball but definitely had opinions about the trade war on Digeris and how it was bullshit. "No one but the asari benefit from this but they're all too stubborn to pull their heads out of their asses." They got into an extended conversation about bad ship mods that were designed to look useful without actually fixing a single problem. Things like that. Beside each other on the railing neither of them questioned the other's presence, or let Vellis leave their attention for too long. Questions only led to other questions after all, and they both had perfectly reasonable excuses for being there.
The easiest of these to maintain was of course that he was flirting with him because he was. Avitus was short for a turian but had very nicely defined features. Sexy voice, gorgeous eyes, and pale grey plates that were in pleasing contrast to Macen's own deep brown. It made for some pleasant mental images he indulged in just briefly before setting them aside as a bit too distracting.
Avitus clearly picked up on his body language and subvocal hums but didn't respond in kind. After all he was on the job as well. But he seemed to appreciate the attention and took a few appreciative glance-overs of his own from time to time. It lifted his spirit in the face of all this grim bullshit.
Still wished he could peg where this guy was from though. Intuition told him they were definitely on the same side of the problem, fuck this terrorist wannabe asshole. It didn't make sense that another organization in the Hierarchy would be stepping on Blackwatch's toes though. Some of the old merc organizations hated separatists on principal and would take any opportunity to stomp them but that didn't seem to fit either. A Spectre or a vigilante who had found out like Elcats had and wasn't willing to leave it up to someone else? Possible, but wouldn't he have been at the meeting itself then? Huh.
Macen's dermal implant buzzed. His team knew he would not be in a position to respond but informed him via vibrations of the bones in his auditory canal that they had just engaged the targets. Separatists down. Engaging Jurdon. He maintained a perfectly casual and appropriate demeanor for the next two minutes and thirty five seconds as he and Avitus discussed which omnitool's repair function actually held on military issue boots for more than a day of hard travel.
....Which was when there was the sound of an explosion in the distance. Yep that was the mounted gun, Hestia must have been thrilled she was finally allowed to use it. The skin of Governor Vellis' throat above his fancy collar went pale as he stared at the smoke rising from the direction of his horrible illegal arms deal. He excused himself and abandoned the conversation he'd been holding with an ambassador from Parthia to make for an exit. Macen cursed under his breath and immediately vaulted over the railing to follow. There was no time to check on the status of his team. He had one job and that was to contain this asshole before anything worse happened.
Vellis was spry for his age and managed to get out a set of side doors before Macen tackled him. He had just started to struggle when the voices of confused and frightened party guests came into the hallway and his head snapped back. His constituents and colleagues were watching, shouting, frightened. Everyone was staring. Whether it was from shame as to what he had done or distress that his carefully laid plans had been destroyed, all of the fight melted out of him and he slumped broken to the floor. It was easy enough to snap a disrupter over his omni to freeze remaining evidence from potential delete orders and apply the needed restraints to keep him prone after that. Guy never said a word, just seemed to sink into himself. Looked like Macen was never going to understand him, and thank the Spirits for that.
Normally someone would had come after him for attacking the governor by now. He had his credentials prepped and ready but nothing happened. Vellis' bodyguards had just... stopped in the hall? They clearly didn't like it, but Avitus stood in front of them with unmistakable command in his posture and none of them dared move. Macen felt his heart skip a beat.
"How'd you manage that?" He asked as he got up, bare curiosity in his subvocals.
"Spectre authority." Avitus said flatly.
"So that's who you're with!" Macen crowed.
"And you?"
"Blackwatch. We just fucked up this idiot's plans."
"And mine too."
Ah, so that's why he looked like he'd bitten into a spoiled kiwuk. Macen shrugged as best he could while dragging the broken old man to his feet and put on his best winning smile. "Sorry, your organization should have contacted mine and we could have negotiated point."
"We don't do that." Avitus answered. His voice was still sour but his undertones hummed with a more kind of tired acceptance.
Macen laughed. He didn't get one back of course, but hey it could have been worse. And maybe this was a bad idea, but he really couldn't help himself and pressed a key on his omni. "If you want me to make it up to you some time, there's a ping from Macen Barro with my contact info."
He gave a salute to the now flustered Spectre and the baffled crowd and left the building with his prisoner without further ado.
---
Three hours later, while his unit was celebrating a successful operation with zero allied casualties, Macen got a text on his omnitool.
Kryik is never going to let me live this down. You definitely owe me a drink.
-Avitus Rix
And there was his contact info, embedded in the message.
Macen turned to his unit commander and interrupted her drinking with a full mandible spread grin. "You're never gonna guess what I just got."