Untie my hands (Part 1)

Prologue

🍊 It's AU (diverge from canon after episode 10), and the story is based on real historical facts about California's only pirate:
https://californiamissionguide.com/california-mission-history/californias-pirate-hippolyte-de-bouchard/
🍊 The Barcelona Royal Military Academy also existed in reality, as did the 9th Cavalry Regiment "Santiago" (Regimiento de Caballería "Santiago" n.º 9).
🍊 And we can't do without the adventures of Guy Williams' Zorro in South America, can we? ;)
🍊 With no doubt, Aragarna is a hero of California for editing it <3
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Monastario (to Diego): You are subject to a lot of things, are you not?

Walt Disney's Zorro S01E08

"I was looking for you, Teniente* de la Vega!"

Monastario's manner of rushing into the room had not changed, only his military rank had.

"¿Sí, mi coronel?"** the regiment adjutant responded, putting down his pen.

The military uniform suited the former señorito***, just as the former comandante of the Californian pueblo looked quite at home within the walls of the headquarters of the Ninth Cavalry Regiment "Santiago", located in Barcelona.

"Don Diego, I have news," said Monastario, frowning. "You remember de Bouchard, of course?"

"How could I not remember?" grinned Lieutenant de la Vega, but his face darkened. "Has that damned corsair dared to burn and plunder my California again?!"

"No, no. On the contrary, one might say-" he hesitated, but meeting the Adjutant's puzzled look, he continued, "It turns out that Hipólito de Bouchard remembered me... He is currently serving Peru. I have been offered a diplomatic mission to Lima. Of course, they suggested I take you with me if I agreed. What do you think of that?"

"Is he at least married, that Bouchard?" Diego drawled, and smiled meaningfully.

Monastario, whose lips also twitched in a smile, shrugged silently.

"I suppose it's not an easy mission," de la Vega continued. "General San Martín declared Peru independent last summer, after ten months of fighting with our troops."

"And before that, he defeated us in Chile," Monastario snorted. "But you know, Don Diego, that it was for my participation in the war with the Chilean rebels that I received the badges of military valor."

"That's why you're being sent to Peru, isn't it, Don Enrique? Your military awards will earn the respect of San Martín and the others, as will the royalist disgrace that brought us together in Los Angeles."

He and Monastario did not hide their long-standing acquaintance, but they still avoided addressing each other by name where they could be overheard. The address Don was intended to convince potential witnesses of their conversation that Colonel Monastario and his adjutant were friends, nothing more.

"I can refuse, teniente."

"But you want to agree, don't you, mi coronel?"

"Diego, let's take a walk," the Colonel replied, and he thought for the umpteenth time that the Fox remained the Fox even in uniform.

In Spain, Diego de la Vega walked on the edge of the knife even more often than in California. They both did. Judging by the smile that curved de la Vega's lips, he was thinking the same thing as Monastario. However, having reached the La Ribera quarter, their favorite place for walks, they were finally able to talk openly, and the conversation turned, of course, to politics-a topic incompatible with playfulness.