Fontaine had never fought with himself before. But he had also never had a genetically modified murder child on its way to kill him nor had he ever shot up with ADAM before.

Today would be a day of firsts.

…

…

He'd lost sight of the kid for no more than five seconds and he'd vanished.

Not in the dead in a ditch fashion he'd intended either, more along the lines of up and made tracks sort of vanished.

Jack, his little genetic freak of nature, missing.

There was something about this that reminded Fontaine of a shark. He'd always attested that it was the shark you could not see that was the one that'd take the killing bite out of your hide, rather than the one you could keep your sights on. They came at you from the bottom you see. Torpedoing out of the murky depths, clearing the distance between you and it before you even have the chance to register your final moments. before it ends. The fin in the water was a red herring.

Not all that unlike, oh lets say, the only voice in all of hell happening to be a trustworthy, home-grown Irish accent for example?

But no matter how messy the end, all that splashing and screaming as the water turned red, Fontaine had never had difficulty with sharks before. This would be something of a first for him, a mistake made perhaps out of all this time spent being invisible. Things became alarmingly easy once he took the reigns of the revolutionary, dulled what had once been a skill set sharper than any knife.

New skills were traded for his old ones, this whole Atlas business carried with it a different act to the last. Moving people was still how the business was done but as the war went on and the people became less, Atlas's hands got dirtier. It was mostly avoided where he could help it, after all what was the purpose of being a conman if he was forced to do the heavy lifting himself? Eighty percent of a good con was getting others to do everything for him and leave with the best of the deal. But Rapture had been different, more so than he initially realised and now he sat here with the cost of his carelessness.

Maybe, just maybe, it had been his fault.

But after having been good ol' Atlas for so bleeding long shrugging off that front had been like a breath of fresh air he hadn't known he needed. Fresh air was already hard enough to come by in Rapture. He'd only meant to enjoy himself a little, soaking in his victory that had been a long time coming and there'd been no one else around to enjoy it with – so his little genetic freak had been just the ticket.

A man couldn't get so much as a single moment of indulgence down here no more could he? Unbelievable.

Besides he'd done little more than impart a little wisdom onto the kid. A few truths after nothing but lies. Granted he might have taken to the task of enlighten their little Jack with just a little too much vigour, but who could fault him for that? If there'd ever been a time for celebration this had been it, so yeah. Maybe he had been a touch overzealous with his words – so sue him.

But to his honest to god credit – the kid was supposed to be dead a few minutes after anyway. Not like he would be carrying the emotional scars for long, so why not have a bit of a laugh?

Perhaps because Jack was not in fact dead. He'd just stumbled into his first taste of reality and then he was gone. Likely with Fontaine's name still freshly branded into his head.

Shit.

Fontaine had a mountain of things he wanted to do once the genetic key was his. A laundry list of things to get through before he could even look at expanding to the surface, and he couldn't even start on the first fucking dot point because his little science experiment had up and houdini'd on him.

Snarling viciously under his breath, Fontaine raked his gaze over the monitors again. He'd watched Jack from the moment the boy had come stumbling out, still bleary eyed, from that bathysphere. Got him from point A to Z more efficiently than anyone could have asked for – they would not dwell on that little blackout on Cohen's playhouse, that was not his fault – but now? Now that the master of Rapture needed to find him most, there wasn't so much as a glimpse of that offensively unattractive sweater. He wished the kid had not come back to Rapture still wearing that grotesque thing, no matter how neatly blood seeped into its weave.

And if he could not see him anywhere in Rapture now that all eyes belonged to him – there were only two places he could be. The first was somewhere around the old prison that Sinclair fellow ran. But that place had been cut off to the rest of Rapture for long enough that it could have been ADAM free and functioning all on its lonesome and they wouldn't have the foggiest. Jack was not likely to have found his way there.

Which meant he was in mother goose's roost.

"Fuck!" Fontaine cursed, slamming his fist down onto the desk that had borne more than its fair share of his outbursts throughout its life. Today, its age began to show as it groaned and creaked, threatening to give way if Frank dared strike it like that again. "That little shit stain wants to screw me out of my decade long investment in this place? Let's see if he makes it five fucking feet before I take him apart."

His temper was getting the best of him and Fontaine goddamn let it. Hadn't been able to express proper anger since falling into that little Irish bit. Couldn't be flying off the handle when there were people looking at him all starry eyed, expecting a saviour.

But it was just him now.

Alone, until the brat showed back up. Because he would.

Fontaine did not doubt this for a moment. The kid would turn back up on his doorstep before long. Couldn't even fault him for that, were their positions reversed Frank would be out for blood as well.

This was hardly the first time a disgruntled 'business partner' came looking for him. But it would be the first instance of that former colleague packing a punch that could down a big daddy on a good day, two men on a bad. A kid that couldn't die so long as there was a vita-chamber nearby. A kid that he had made to withstand a barrage of bullets.

Yeah, this would be something of a first.

Briefly Fontaine's gaze flicked back up to the monitors. Looking even though he did not expect Jack to sudden materialize out of thin air, he'd given it a number of hours already. But he could see everything else, all those lunatics sniffing around looking for his lost kid.

The splicers were…interesting to manage. Different to how he had once to controlled them – lording ADAM over their heads like some junkies chasing after that powder. Now there was very little in the way of bargaining with them. He already had all the ADAM but Ryan had left him with those pheromones to lead those half-rabid morons. It was by no means a finely tuned way of moving masses, but it sure as hell was effective. They hardly even knew what they were doing – but they were still combing the place for Jack.

And still they hadn't found him. The entirety of Rapture looking and the hole that Tenenbaum kept was still out of sight. He'd be impressed if he were not so extraordinarily pissed. He supposed that the freaky German broad probably felt the same protective instinct for Jack as she did those little monsters. Likely would have caused him problems had she had a sudden development of conscience before they put him in the pod that took him topside.

Maternal fucking instinct – it'd brought him nothing but grief.

Grimly Fontaine's gaze dropped to the abused desk. Most of it was little more than evidence of his extended stay in the same location. Abandoned cigars, a cluster of empty bottles and too many loose scraps of paper to keep track of. His plans and documents were mostly internalised, but when he did need to keep it all noted down there used to be a better system than this. Neat, tidy, hidden. But with Jack needing his constant surveillance through Rapture he hadn't had the time and it was unlikely it really mattered now. No one left to really hunt down his few remaining secrets.

But amongst the papers there were a few pictures he should have scrapped long ago. The machine that had been rigged up before things really went to hell was supposed to funnel all the ADAM in Rapture at will. It was supposed to be for him. Suchong seemed to think they'd be able to make that top of the line plasmid that Fontaine requested for himself. Something without the nasty side effects. In fact he'd already supplied Fontaine with those plasmids – he only needed to crack them open and take them for a test run.

Fontaine didn't so much as look at the safe they were stored in.

"Focus Frankie." He hissed under his breath, rubbing his tired eyes harshly. Damn near pressing them into his sockets in an attempt to just stop them from aching. "Focus. Don't be letting the con slip away from you. Keep away from the stuff..."

He was no angel, he'd had his fair share of the good stuff topside and what he could afford while in Rapture. But with an investment like this he'd been forced to clean up a little bit more than he would have liked. The booze he could keep, an excuse to lock himself up with the whisky readily supplied in Atlas's lilt, but the stronger stuff had to be put on the back burner. Shooting up with plasmids sure as shit was off the table. In the early days, he'd seen it destroy people quick enough. But Suchong had been adamant that what he'd cooked up for his employer of the time would have no lasting ill effects.

Probably best not to trust the chink.

He wouldn't touch it. The safe remained locked and Fontaine's eyes stayed on the screens.

And finally, finally, as though he'd never left at all in the first place – the kid came crawling out of the woodworks.

It was such an overwhelming relief when he finally caught sight of the exhausted kid dragging himself out of some hole in the wall. Looked like a million bucks, still wearing that ugly sweater and covered in blood and bruises the kid was back on his radar. He'd clearly rested, but it might have done more harm than good – supplying his body with a false sense of security when he wasn't out of the mousetrap yet. Bloody kid didn't have his brains after all. No one could afford a brief reprieve in Rapture.

But Fontaine was more than happy to supply it with a more permanent reprieve.

"And now you've got hooked up with Tenenbaum, huh, kid? She's a regular Mother Goose."

Jack jumped upon hearing his true accent coming filtering through the radio at his hip. Never did that when it was good ol' Atlas on the other end. But he listened all the same and that was all that really mattered.

As Fontaine spoke to Jack it felt suspiciously like he was doing little more than pulling the pin on a brat's tantrum. Ruining the fun before Jack got the chance to really get going. Well one of them had to be the adult here didn't they? "All right, fun's fun, kid, but now... go get stepped on by a big daddy, Would you kindly?"

Admittedly his particular choice of phrasing might have come from a place of anger. Exhausted and frustrated after having waited on the damn brat to show back up again. He thought it perfectly reasonable that he was compensated for his troubles with a bit of entertainment if nothing else.

Except Jack wasn't being very entertaining. In fact, he wasn't doing much of anything.

"Huh?" And shit if the disbelief in his voice was not the most honesty he'd ever bestowed onto the kid.

Grabbing for his radio again, Fontaine's fingers turned white around the sturdy device. Some useless part of his brain mused that it was just as well it was, because he would have crushed it in that moment were it not practically a brick. "I says," He repeated slowly, as though that might somehow get it through Jacks thick skull. "Would you kindly go get stepped on by a Big Daddy!"

A cold dread began settling into the pit of Fontaine's stomach as he watched. Jack, wound up tight as a spring just waiting to snap back into place, waited as well. The seconds trickled on by and then very, very slowly Jack began to turn his hands over. Checking himself, flexing his fingers and finally cracking a smile.

But he went nowhere.

Understanding joined the icy stone in Frank's stomach. Not that it showed much in his words – he didn't get where he was by having a weak front. "Ah. Seems like Mother Goose has been playing around in your egg salad." That bitch, fucking around with his things. But fine, if that didn't fly no more – he had the squint work on a few others that even the German bitch didn't know about. "If you won't dance to that tune, I got others. 'Code Yellow.'"

Now there was just something about the way the kid dropped, how he abruptly went from grinning at his new found sense of freedom to being hunched over wheezing on his own air, as though someone had just punched it straight out of his gut. That really took the wind out of Fontaine's sails for a moment.

He'd been more than happy to watch him wander off and get himself skewered on the end of a big daddy's drill – but watching Jack slowly decay was a rather different kind of satisfaction. One that came with just a hint of bitterness once the initial vindictive satisfaction ebbed away. Slow deaths were a hassle, it meant he had more time to cool off and just…observe.

If Jack had just been a good boy it would be well and truly over before that bitterness could have set in.

But it had not set in just yet.

"I just told your brain to tell your heart to stop beating." He explained, smirking as Jack doubled over, pulling at his chest as though he might somehow be able to physically undo what his master had just done. His futile and frantic attempts did little more than feed Fontaine's gloating. "Not right off the bat, mind you. The heart's a stubborn muscle. But it ain't that stubborn."

There was the bitterness. He went quiet for a time, although his gaze never strayed far from Jack now that he had him back in his sight again. After the initial burst of giddy satisfaction that came with one upping the freaky scientist and her meddling, the coldness returned.

Because his kid was persistent as hell and even as he struggled back onto his own two feet, suffering the effects of the shutdown sequence his body had moved into, he kept on going.

Stubborn little shit didn't know when to just roll over and die.

He must have gotten that one from his old man.

Even more concerning was the fact he was still making considerable progress. He'd become something of the resident expert in splicer termination and it showed as he slugged it through the hordes that had been just waiting for their chance to go at him once he entered Olympus Heights, looking for something.

His answer came over the radio with the bitch's accented words. Oh for fuck's sake – the kid was looking for a cure to his control? Wasn't stripping him of his favourite three little words enough?

In that moment Fontaine resolved to take his time with that German twist when all was said and done, a bullet not nearly satisfying enough. He thought he'd cut her some slack at first – after all that little sea slug had been her gift to him way back when. Got them to where they were today. Would 'have been in poor form to not give such a profitable business partner a quick death.

Hell, he'd been willing to do just the same for Jack but both he and Tenenbaum had not taken his kindness and instead continued to fucking breathe.

"Should 'ave just kept that German twist at a good arm's length." Fontaine groused under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as a headache began to set in. He had not wanted to spend his victory lap fucking dealing with this shit.

Yet when he saw the first of those leaden-headed morons giving Jack a rough time, pouncing on him not long after a messy encounter with a big daddy, for what seemed like the first time since he stumbled into the use of plasmids, Fontaine almost felt merciful enough to be sincere with the kid. Almost.

And of course, he could not forgo a perfect opportunity to speak up. "That's it, kid." He purred across the radio thinking that it would only be fitting that Jack heard his voice last. Hell, he even packed on a bit of sugar in his words; comfort the little idiot through the process of walking up the pearly gates as it were. "You're busto. My new friends will catch up with you soon. Ah, kid ... I hope they make it quick."

He truly meant that. The quicker this was over, the sooner he could step off that edge he'd been on since Jack first vanished.

But of course, he had not paid for subpar goods when ordering Jack up, and so he should not have been surprised when the little bastard managed to pull through, clinging to a first aid dispenser like it was his god damn light and saviour.

Un-fucking-believable.

That headache was becoming more prevalent now.

Pushing away from his little workstation Fontaine went in search of another drink. Where the hell was that whisky? He knew it must be around the place somewhere; he'd been saving it. Not quite with celebratory purposes in mind, but certainly not as a way to kill an oncoming aneurism.

He found the dusty bottle carefully tucked away under his bed. Sitting back on his haunches Fontaine rubbed the bottle clean, scrutinizing the label without really caring or needing to refresh his memory on its brand.

It had travelled with him from topside to the dingy little office he'd initially set up in the fisheries. A few times he'd almost broken it out, usually in better spirits than he was now, but always he'd put it away again. Saving it for imaginary scenario where it would be better suited to drink.

They'd had plenty of booze to down after all, and this whisky had once upon a time been someone else's – a gift if he recalled correctly. Stealing was no great concern for him, but he'd simply had no need to take this when there were plenty of other bottles available to him and far less troublesome to have.

However, the dead did not need the high like the living did. And by god did he need it now.

Breaking the bottle open Fontaine hesitated on returning to the desk. Even from there he could make out Jack's figure, having become rather good at spotting him among Rapture's wreckage after so long keeping an eye on him. Sure enough he was doing just fine, fucking peachy. Disgruntled, Frank did not go back to watching Jack step on every single one of his nerves and instead sat on the ground, back against his bed with the bottle in hand.

It was important, he reflected, to remember where he could drop the act. Safe and alone, a place fitting those characteristics had not existed anywhere in Rapture for two years now. But since there was no more Atlas act and so now he was free to be Fontaine away from prying eyes. Free to sit here on the floor of his own roost and take a massive swig from the lukewarm bottle.

Immediately Frank cringed, coughing violently. He had not expected the taste he got. "Oh fuck, what the hell?" He gagged, checking the bottle again for any indication that it might have been stored incorrectly or traded out for some kind of poison.

Sure enough, he found the label that he knew so well to be flaking slightly and when he peeled it back was rewarded with the most obvious thing in the world.

"Should 'ave fucking known." Frank chuckled dryly, still recovering from the shock of essentially drinking nothing besides straight alcohol when he'd expected something a little less breath stopping. "Lunatic…" He muttered, dropping the bottle down between his legs to stare up at the ceiling, idly counting the cracks he could see as he waited for the world to stop spinning.

He was no lightweight but there were a special few that could always outclass him in the insane lengths they'd go to for a strong drink – this just so happened to be one of those times. Likely it didn't help that most of the booze in Rapture was more water than alcohol towards the end. There was a reason he'd kept his own damn stash back in the day.

Those days felt like a lifetime ago. In fact, they were from a lifetime ago.

Before Jack and Adam, even Ryan and his fucking undersea utopia. Before Atlas was even an abstract idea conjured up from a haphazard sighting of a poster. The life he'd been leading before the most intensive lie of his life began. Back when the only lie he still had to keep track of was Fontaine.

Might as well have been fifteen lives ago belonging to a different man for as distant a memory as it was. "Must be all those nights without sleep." He reasoned to himself. "To be getting so fucking nostalgic."

That might have been the other reason he'd never reached for this bottle before.

Tiredly his gaze drifted back down to the monitors and sure enough Jack was still at it. Irritated by the boy's insistence on living, Fontaine finally heaved himself back to his feet and returned to the desk. Purposefully not looking at the safe in the corner that seemed to be screaming at him, he set himself back down. He'd brought the bottle with him.

"I don't like this anymore than you do, kid." He began slowly, another little shred of sincerity buried under all of that crippling anger. "But you gotta understand where I'm coming from." Fontaine continued easily, none of his exhaustion coming through in the low drawl. He was better an actor than that. "I've got twelve years down here. Big investment." He was not explaining himself to Jack, Fontaine didn't fucking need to explain himself. He was just… This was just fact.

"A man can't walk away from a long con like that."

He couldn't. He wouldn't.

For the first time since this all really started, Fontaine hated how quiet his kid was as he looked into the blinking eye of a security camera. Staring through it as if he could somehow see the man on the other side. Jack's silence felt like condemnation.